SPEAKER_01: Saving humanity.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new to faith, today you're about to have a speed run through the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to meet historical figures that are important to the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to learn how the Bible prepares the way through the Old Testament to get you ready to receive Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been a Christian for a while, then hopefully this conversation will help you revisit some of those familiar stories from a new angle.
SPEAKER_01: But let me share a story that might help you understand where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I are getting ready to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary this spring.
SPEAKER_01: When we got married, we were 23 and 24, and in front of God and all of our friends and our family, we promised each other that we would be loving and faithful spouses in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, and sickness and in health as long as we both shall live.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty wild to think about it.
SPEAKER_01: At that moment of our life, we didn't really know all the things that life was going to throw our way, but we made these really big important promises.
SPEAKER_01: Brandy didn't know that at some point in our marriage I would try and grow a beard and look really weird for like a whole year.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that marrying a music teacher would mean I'd be hearing hot cross buns from eight different instruments for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_01: But more seriously, we didn't know we'd have to walk through some pretty complicated health issues together.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't know the joy that we would have two amazing daughters together.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't realize, hey, we might have to move eight different times in this journey to ministry.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't know all the pressures that ministry would bring.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't know all the joys and the glad and the gladness that it would bring as well.
SPEAKER_01: But here's a crazy thing.
SPEAKER_01: In a world where we lacked all the specific details, our promises have carried us together through uncharted territory.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't know what the specifics of life would bring, but we knew we had each other's yes.
SPEAKER_01: And when it came to those promises, so as a result, we've been able to navigate the highs and the lows of life because we know deep down this is what we mean for each other.
SPEAKER_01: When things got hard or complicated, we could look back at those promises and they'd help us determine, hey, these are the things we should be prioritizing in these particular moments.
SPEAKER_01: I say all that to say promises are powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And if you ever had a promise broken against you, you know the particular type of pain that that brings.
SPEAKER_01: That the horizon dims, it feels like the ground beneath your feet begins to shrink a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: But oppositely, when a promise is kept, you know the strength that that brings you.
SPEAKER_01: Because in a world of uncertainty, you get a small taste of something firm and secure, and it gives you the courage to go one more step.
SPEAKER_01: And with all that being said, it would make sense that God is a God of promises.
SPEAKER_01: That of all the ways that God could have chosen to interact with humanity, of all the ways that God could have chosen to fix the problem of sin and death in the world, it makes sense that God would choose to respond by making promises.
SPEAKER_01: So today I want to just take a few moments.
SPEAKER_01: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you've promised so many wonderful and amazing things to us that we really don't deserve.
SPEAKER_01: God, out of all the promises that we've ever tried to make to you, we're really not that good at keeping them.
SPEAKER_01: But in that you really are.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, even when we fail, you still come back to us, God.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, today, as we we consider your promises more deeply, would you help us to remember the promises you've made to us, Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Would you restore to us the joy that comes with those particular things of knowing you and who you are?
SPEAKER_01: God, would you help us to see that it's in your nature to save us all the way from the beginning?
SPEAKER_01: And so, God, will we receive that well today?
SPEAKER_01: God, we love you.
SPEAKER_01: It's little stuff like this.
SPEAKER_01: It's sermons and conversations and thoughts we haven't thought about in a long time that you can use to transform our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So, Jesus, would you help us?
SPEAKER_01: To lay down our walls, to lay down our guard, and to truly want to hear something from you today.
SPEAKER_01: God, we know a second in your presence can change your lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're asking for just that.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, just moments in your presence today.
SPEAKER_01: We love you, we praise you in your name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So to start off with, let me give you the definition.
SPEAKER_01: That way we can use that definition as we go through the rest of our sermon today.
SPEAKER_01: A covenant is a relationship between two partners who make binding promises to each other to reach a common goal.
SPEAKER_01: They're often accompanied by oaths or signs or ceremonies.
SPEAKER_01: You know this to be true.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been to a wedding, we make promises before God, before each other, before the church, and then we seal the promises with rings and usually a great party and food after.
SPEAKER_01: So in the Bible, you find these moments where God makes promises to humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And it's for humanity's protection and blessing and rescue.
SPEAKER_01: And in response, he asks, Hey, would you just work within the guidelines that I've set out?
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna work for your flourishing in the end.
SPEAKER_01: In the ancient world, there wasn't really no complicated system for governments and organizing.
SPEAKER_01: So often you would find these covenant treaty type documents where a stronger party would say to a weaker party, hey, I'll take care of you, I'll look after you, I'll protect you from other things.
SPEAKER_01: All I need you to do is A, B, and C.
SPEAKER_01: If you're one of those nerdy people that want to get out, like enjoy this, look up suzerain vassal treaties when you get home.
SPEAKER_01: Like one of you is gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: And where you and I are gonna have a great conversation three weeks from now.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone else, maybe when you're on jeopardy, it'll pop back up.
SPEAKER_01: But why this is important, all throughout scripture you find out that God is a promise-making God.
SPEAKER_01: That this is the way he does business.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's the case, it's really under really important to understand: hey, what are those promises that he's made, and how does that help me relate to him better?
SPEAKER_01: So we'll go through them really quickly.
SPEAKER_01: The first promise, Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, 15 to 17, it'll be up here, you can look it up in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: Says, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for from it, for if you eat from it, you will certainly die.
SPEAKER_01: It's a simple promise.
SPEAKER_01: Here's an awesome job.
SPEAKER_01: You get to look at giraffes and come up with clever names for them.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine when they saw the platypus, like, what is that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's an awesome job, here's a wonderful place to live.
SPEAKER_01: The stipulations to the promise, just don't eat from that particular tree, because if you do, you'll die.
SPEAKER_01: There's this common goal of managing and tending to the garden.
SPEAKER_01: There's conditions that happen if Adam should fail to keep his promise.
SPEAKER_01: Spoiler alert, if you weren't here last week, they eat from the tree.
SPEAKER_01: Sin and death enter into the world, they pull against God's design and God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the crazy thing.
SPEAKER_01: And I think this will help us begin to tie into some of the other things we've talked about already in the last couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: That because God is a loving and gracious God, when Adam and Eve sin, his first impulse isn't to curse them.
SPEAKER_01: It's to curse the serpent and then to promise their rescue.
SPEAKER_01: If you scroll over to Genesis 3.14, you begin to see the promise of rescue in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're only in chapter 3 of your Bible, and already God is promising for our rescue.
SPEAKER_01: It says this in 3.14.
SPEAKER_01: So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals.
SPEAKER_01: You will crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_01: I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.
SPEAKER_01: He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.
SPEAKER_01: And already in Genesis 3, you're getting a picture of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That the offspring of Eve is going to live in tension with the offspring of Satan, but there is a he out there who will crush the serpent's head.
SPEAKER_01: That's Jesus already in your.
SPEAKER_01: If you were to close your Bible right there in chapter three, you'd already realize there's a God out there who promises rescue for his people.
SPEAKER_01: And so if that's the case, if that's God's impulse, if that's in his DNA, man, if you are in a moment where you have sinned against God, it's important to rest, it's important to realize that God's impulse towards you is first towards your rescue before it is towards your punishment.
SPEAKER_01: That if it's in his nature to do that, I beg you, don't you wait a hundred years before turning back to God.
SPEAKER_01: That if you sin tonight, if something doesn't go well, don't wait three weeks until you finally feel like, oh, I forgot, maybe God's forgotten by now.
SPEAKER_01: It's in his impulse to rescue you.
SPEAKER_01: Would you run towards him?
SPEAKER_01: He could have stopped it there.
SPEAKER_01: He could have blown it up and never, but it's in his impulse to come and rescue us.
SPEAKER_01: If that's the kind of God that's out there, would you run to him?
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the second promise, Noah.
SPEAKER_01: In case you're unfamiliar with the story of Noah, Genesis 6 to 9, here's a quick summary.
SPEAKER_01: The world has grown pretty wicked in a few generations after Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 6, 5 to 6 puts it this way.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on earth, and that every intent, listen, this is a wild statement, and that every intent of their hearts was only evil continually.
SPEAKER_01: So the Lord was sorry that he made mankind on earth.
SPEAKER_01: He was grieved in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so God decides that in his mercy to send a flood to cleanse the earth.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we get our earliest imagery of baptism in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: If you were here week one, we talked about floods being kind of rowdy and bad and a symbolism of disorder.
SPEAKER_01: God sends the disorder in so he can restart creation anew.
SPEAKER_01: And God finds this righteous man named Noah and decides that he would be one who would be saved, and through him he could start the creative process all over again.
SPEAKER_01: So Noah and his family hop in a boat with a whole bunch of animals and they survive the flood.
SPEAKER_01: And after they get out of this boat, God makes this promise to Noah in Genesis 9, 4, and following.
SPEAKER_01: Says, But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.
SPEAKER_01: And for your lifeblood I'll require a reckoning.
SPEAKER_01: From every beast I'll require it, and from man, from his fellow man I require a reckoning for the life of man.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.
SPEAKER_01: For God made man in his own image.
SPEAKER_01: Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you.
SPEAKER_01: I will establish my covenant that never again shall you be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall a flood destroy the earth.
SPEAKER_01: When the bow is in the clouds, you will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Lot of words, but deep down it's really simple.
SPEAKER_01: God says to Noah, Hey, the world is yours.
SPEAKER_01: But if you or somebody else spills blood, you'll have to reckon with God.
SPEAKER_01: And I promise I'm not going to flood the earth again.
SPEAKER_01: And to remind you of it, when you look up and you see a rainbow in the clouds, you'll remember that I'll never punish the earth to that degree ever again.
SPEAKER_01: But it's crazy, as you look a little bit more deeply into this promise, you see something really clear about God.
SPEAKER_01: And it's that God cares about justice.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If you read in there, you realize God institutes a penalty for murder that did not exist before.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've realized this, but humans are incredibly unjust.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been around a middle school boy, you know this.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you an example.
SPEAKER_01: Uh boys like to make fun of each other, and every once in a while it gets a little bit too far.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Like they'll start by making fun of somebody's sneakers, and then it moves on to making fun of somebody's laugh, and then after a while they're making fun of somebody's hairline, and then their mom, and then the whole family tree is getting it after a while.
SPEAKER_01: But there's this thing within humans that we like to exact revenge to a disproportionate level.
SPEAKER_01: And when that method governs us as a human race, there's chaos to pay.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we see before the flood.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back to Genesis 4.23, you find out that Lamech, one of Abraham's, one of Adam's descendants, said the wildest thing.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I have killed a man for wounding me and a young man for striking me.
SPEAKER_01: Boy, that's really not that fair.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on to say, hey, if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's revenge is seventyfold.
SPEAKER_01: That's the law that's governing the land before Noah shows up on the scene.
SPEAKER_01: Right, humans, we like to exact vengeance on an imbalanced scale.
SPEAKER_01: But when someone gives us a scratch, we want to take a limb for it.
SPEAKER_01: And here, after the flow, we see God promise, hey, I'm going to step in.
SPEAKER_01: So when God says, hey, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image, he's essentially stopping the cycle of unmeasured violence and revenge in the world and beginning to create a system of justice.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because human life is valuable to God.
SPEAKER_01: And violence against a human is actually violence against the closest thing that looks like God in the world around us.
SPEAKER_01: It's important to recognize because God says, hey, if if I leave humanity to themselves, they'll actually cannibalize themselves because they've got sin in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: So God steps in and creates a covenant.
SPEAKER_01: I say all that to say you can begin to see here, yes, God does place boundaries on us.
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately it's for our flourishing.
SPEAKER_01: I say this to say, hey, if God has placed a boundary in your life, could it be there's a good reason?
SPEAKER_01: Could it be that God's not looking to rain on your parade, that God says, hey, you don't know what you would do with your sinful heart in a state like this, and so you need somebody to step in and say, hey, this is how we're gonna run things from now on.
SPEAKER_01: That God didn't put the laws and all the commands in the Bible to ruin your life, He did it so that you could flourish, that He knows that we are incapable of saving ourselves, so He has to step in.
SPEAKER_01: And so in the second covenant, we learned, hey, God is a just God and His inclination is to save.
SPEAKER_01: The third promise, Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're starting to get some dates in the picture, circa 2,000 BC.
SPEAKER_01: If you continue through Genesis, you find out quickly that uh through chapters 9 and 11, humanity is still in the grips of evil.
SPEAKER_01: If you're reading this in your Bible, you've got to wonder to yourself, like, hey, how are we ever gonna figure this out?
SPEAKER_01: The more you read the stories, there people are evil and wicked and crazy stuff, and so God decides to begin this redemptive partnership with Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: In Genesis 12 and 15 and 17, God irons out this covenant with Abraham, and it says this, beginning in chapter 17, verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: This is God speaking to Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father to a multitude of nations.
SPEAKER_01: No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I have made you a father of multitudes of nations.
SPEAKER_01: I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, which is modern-day Israel and Palestine, for an everlasting possession, and I'll be their God.
SPEAKER_01: And God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout all their generations.
SPEAKER_01: This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you, every male among you shall be circumcised.
SPEAKER_01: We see in this passage that of all the families of earth, that God chose one to begin a new type of people that would exemplify to the rest of the world what a relationship with God would look like.
SPEAKER_01: That God would accomplish this, He'd give Abraham's family a special piece of land, and through that they would uh walk with God, and so the rest of the world would look on and say, wow, there's a God out there, and when he walks with somebody, this is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: And just like that covenant with Noah that was marked by an outward sign of the rainbow, God gives uh Abraham, he says, Hey, we're gonna use circumcision as a way to uh mark an outward sign for you and your people.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before you write this off, is like, hey, that's really weird.
SPEAKER_01: Like, why would that be God's first thing?
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's gotta be strange for Abraham and his family.
SPEAKER_01: Like, really, God, that's what we're gonna do here?
SPEAKER_01: You gotta realize that's an outward sign that this people would be different than everybody else around them.
SPEAKER_01: That it showed that their future, that their fertility was ultimately in God's hands and nobody else's.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham and his descendants would be in charge of that part.
SPEAKER_01: They'd have to take care of the outward sign, and God would take care of the big heavy lifting.
SPEAKER_01: He'd give them the land, he'd take care of the enemies, he'd establish their steps and all that wild stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And you see clearly that that beginning with Abraham, God begins this dance with humanity.
SPEAKER_01: He says this in five to six, and mind you, Abraham is hearing these words, somewhere between the ages of 75 and 86, says, Look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them.
SPEAKER_01: And he said to him, So shall your offspring be.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the crazy like right, Abraham hearing this as a 76 to 86-year-old man, says he believed the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And he counted it to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: That God brings the promise.
SPEAKER_01: God does the heavy lifting, and one of the key things that we bring to the table is our faith.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to believe at some point that God is able to do what he said he'll do.
SPEAKER_01: And so we learn from this covenant with Abraham that as God does the heavy lifting, we bring the primary response of our faith, that ultimately faith is the thing that's gonna help us move into the unknown when things get pretty wild.
SPEAKER_01: Just like my marriage with Brandy, it's faith that in God and each other that helps us move forward into the next 13, 40, 50 years of our marriage.
SPEAKER_01: It's that faith that, hey, I don't know what we're gonna get into, but what I know about you is enough to say I'm willing to go forward.
SPEAKER_01: Or I don't know what we're gonna get into, but I if we both choose to prioritize these particular things, I think we're gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: And so God invites us into these covenants to say, hey, I'll use you.
SPEAKER_01: So today, would you remember that if God is the one making the promise, it's worth walking forward on.
SPEAKER_01: That if God is the one telling you something, that you can move with confidence, that if he's the one sharing with you, you can move forward.
SPEAKER_01: The fourth promise, we're moving quick, Moses.
SPEAKER_01: By the time we get to the book of Exodus, we learn about Abraham's descendants.
SPEAKER_01: They've grown to a sizable nation now.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking 650,000 men, not including women and children.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a million, a few million people that are now in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: They're rapidly growing, and as they continue to grow, they become a threat to Pharaoh's empire.
SPEAKER_01: And so he decides to enslave them.
SPEAKER_01: But God hears their cries and he rescues them from miraculous means.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever seen the movie Prince of Egypt, they do a really great job at showing you what this looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually they cross the Red Sea, they escape Pharaoh's army, and when they land on the other side, they go to this place called Mount Sinai, where Moses is invited to climb the mountain and receive this covenant between God and humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Says this in Exodus 19, beginning in verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: This is God talking to Moses on behalf of the people.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you'll be my treasured possession.
SPEAKER_01: Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
SPEAKER_01: These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses went back and summoned the elders and the people and set before them the words of the Lord that God had commanded him to speak.
SPEAKER_01: And the people responded all together, We'll do everything the Lord has said.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses brought their answer back to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So already you've got Moses going up and saying, Hey, we're willing to do this dance with you, God.
SPEAKER_01: And so God says, Tell the people we're getting ready for this season of promise.
SPEAKER_01: Come on back up the mountain, and I'll give you all the promises.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses goes back and he spends a few days on the top of Mount Sinai in the presence of God, and that's where we get the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we get all the other laws in the rest of the Bible of Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and things like that.
SPEAKER_01: Unlike the other covenants, this one has a lot more detail.
SPEAKER_01: Before it was like, hey, just don't kill each other.
SPEAKER_01: And now all of a sudden, God and Moses are talking about all these laws on everything.
SPEAKER_01: What to eat, what not to eat, how to handle leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you this week when I was eating breakfast, reading my scriptures, I was reading about the leprosy stuff.
SPEAKER_01: That's weird.
SPEAKER_01: That's not fun while you're trying to eat eggs.
SPEAKER_01: About leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: But in that section is stuff on all of that.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, hey, why are we dealing with all this leprosy and Sabbath?
SPEAKER_01: And what do you do if somebody's ox gores somebody else?
SPEAKER_01: But most importantly, God gives this invitation towards a Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: That when the rest of the world grinds seven days a week, the people of God will stop for a day and trust that God can supply more in their absence of work than they could in their own attempts at producing things.
SPEAKER_01: That if you if you see this part of the Bible as just a bunch of laws, you're going to get really confused at how this begins to point you towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But when you realize that God's not just making these laws for the health and the flourishing of the Israelites, but he's also making these so that they would stand out in the world around them.
SPEAKER_01: That God's rescue plan requires holiness.
SPEAKER_01: That if we're going to get back to the way that things were in the garden before things went wrong, we need to be holy.
SPEAKER_01: And so by keeping this covenant, by keeping these laws, by living this way, they'll be holy.
SPEAKER_01: They'll show the rest of the world around them that this is what it looks like to relate to a holy God because they'll look different and sound different and behave differently.
SPEAKER_01: They're going to show the world, hey, there's something different out there that'll help me understand the God who made everything and it's holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Man, doesn't this sound like someone you know?
SPEAKER_01: That here, all the way back in the second book of the Bible, you've got God preparing the way so that we would understand Jesus when he shows up on the scene later.
SPEAKER_01: He's helping the Israelites say, hey, you're gonna know what holy looks like when you see it.
SPEAKER_01: So that when my son comes a few generations later, you won't miss him.
SPEAKER_01: Unlike the people of Moses' time, Jesus would perfectly keep the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: He would be perfectly holy.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's crazy that the punishment that's laid out in Deuteronomy and other places in the Old Testament that Israel should have paid over and over and over again because they failed to keep up their end of the bargain.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus shows up and says, Hey, I'll take that for you.
SPEAKER_01: In this covenant, we learn that God requires holiness, but God also wants to partner with humanity for the purpose of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Man, if I were God, I would completely skip over humans.
SPEAKER_01: It's too risky.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do it so well, but God chooses to partner with humanity because in doing so we learn something.
SPEAKER_01: We learn about the cost of holiness.
SPEAKER_01: We learn about the beauty of grace.
SPEAKER_01: We learn about the depths of patience necessary that God uses to walk with us century after century.
SPEAKER_01: But praise God, He's generous, He's gracious, He's patient, He's faithful to His end of the bargain even when we aren't.
SPEAKER_01: He's slow to dish out the consequences, even though He could rapidly give them to Him when we deserve them.
SPEAKER_01: As we learned in the covenant with Noah, God delivers perfect justice when we can't.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see already throughout the Bible, God's giving a clearer and clearer picture of, hey, this is who I am, this is who I value, this is how I'll work with you.
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, you're gonna be ready to see how I'll solve it all, and that comes through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So we get to our last promise here.
SPEAKER_01: The book of, we're looking at David.
SPEAKER_01: This is close to 977 BC.
SPEAKER_01: Over the years, Israel ends up conquering the majority of the land that we now know is Israel and Palestine.
SPEAKER_01: They quickly forget the covenant that God made to Moses and decide: hey, just like the rest of the nations around us, we want a king like everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: So they anoint their first king, a guy named Saul, and the qualifications because he was tall and handsome.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna be king, folks.
SPEAKER_01: I don't fit the bill.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, Saul fails to obey God and he gets rejected, and then God chooses David to be king, and he successfully leads Israel to overcome their enemies and restore order.
SPEAKER_01: This is the same David who slayed Goliath, the same David who's described in 1 Samuel 13 as a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: And towards the uh end of David's life in 2 Samuel chapter 7, beginning in verse 12, God makes this promise to David that'll help us get really close at focusing on preparing for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This, when your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, I'll raise up offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I'll establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He shall build a house for my name, and I'll establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
SPEAKER_01: When he commits iniquity, I'll discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from you before.
SPEAKER_01: Here's where it gets crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
SPEAKER_01: Your throne shall be established forever.
SPEAKER_01: And sure, God's telling David, hey, out of your family will come a Messiah who will save the world and rule forever.
SPEAKER_01: By the time David's on the scene here, Israel already had 500 years of messing up.
SPEAKER_01: They had 500 years of realizing, hey, I don't have what it takes to solve the problem of sin.
SPEAKER_01: They got 500 years realizing, hey, I can't keep up my end of the bargain.
SPEAKER_01: I need somebody to save me.
SPEAKER_01: And here in God's promise to David, we learn that help is on the way.
SPEAKER_01: That, hey, God partners, there's a specific family tree that you can keep your eye on, and someone out of that lineage is going to help us to solve this problem of sin.
SPEAKER_01: As you read the rest of the Old Testament, you learn that, hey, Israel has a hard time keeping the promise.
SPEAKER_01: All along, God is sending them messengers, hey, won't you just come back to me?
SPEAKER_01: Would you just be faithful?
SPEAKER_01: Would you just trust in our relationship and realize we're trying to do something special here?
SPEAKER_01: And all the time they keep on choosing sin and choosing sin.
SPEAKER_01: Man, it's into that darkness that God sends Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That the one who can keep the promise, the one who can rescue us from our sin, the one who will rule forever.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to hear more about that next week, but realize that these are the conditions that God is sending his son into.
SPEAKER_01: Since the beginning of time, all we've offered Jesus is our non-compliance.
SPEAKER_01: That all we've offered Jesus really is our failure and our inability to stay faithful to him, and he chooses to be faithful to us.
SPEAKER_01: Boy, what a God.
SPEAKER_01: What a God that would love us, that would chase after us, would give us time and time again over centuries and generations, when we keep failing, God keeps moving our way.
SPEAKER_01: Man, that's a God worth worshiping.
SPEAKER_01: That's a God worth loving.
SPEAKER_01: That's a God worth giving praise with your life.
SPEAKER_01: That's a God worth responding to with the very fiber of your being.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you've got questions today, if you're asking yourself, hey, what kind of God is out there?
SPEAKER_01: I lay before you 2,000 years of history plus of God moving in our direction, of God setting up the groundwork and saying, hey, I've got the solution, I'll pay the cost, though you're unfaithful, I will always be faithful.
SPEAKER_01: And so today, if you're here in a moment of lacking of trust, of having difficulty believing in God, would you realize he's already done a lot of moving your way?
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to move that far in his direction to begin seeing him at work.
SPEAKER_01: That that God loves you enough to follow you, that maybe interactions in your daily life and things that seem to be coincidental, maybe they're not coincidence.
SPEAKER_01: That maybe it's that same active God that's been working through history trying to reach out to you today.
SPEAKER_01: And he wants to share that same love and that same faithfulness with you today.
SPEAKER_01: If that's you, please don't ignore him.
SPEAKER_01: Please open your heart, give him more trust, give him more faith.
SPEAKER_01: When you realize there's a God who does the heavy lifting, who has moved heaven and earth time and time again, would you give him a chance?
SPEAKER_01: Would you give yourself the opportunity to respond to that kind of God?
SPEAKER_01: As we close, two practical ideas that come out of this reality.
SPEAKER_01: If God is doing this, number one, if God is a promise-making God, hey, be a good promise-keeper.
SPEAKER_01: It seems throughout what we've talked about today that God values faithfulness and keeping our promises.
SPEAKER_01: So we should probably value that as well.
SPEAKER_01: It's possible that, here's the crazy thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's possible that the way you keep your promise may help somebody else who doesn't know Jesus yet be open to the promises of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is why Jesus would say things like, hey, let your yes be yes and your no be no, because if people can't trust your ability to keep promises, why are they going to trust more important things out of your mouth?
SPEAKER_01: So with that being said, would you take a moment and reflect on the promises you've made today?
SPEAKER_01: Would you remember your marriage vows?
SPEAKER_01: And how well you're keeping those promises.
SPEAKER_01: Would you remember your commitments to your kids?
SPEAKER_01: Would you remember your promises to your friends?
SPEAKER_01: Would you remember your commitments to the church and the body of Christ around you?
SPEAKER_01: Would you ask God, hey, can you help me identify areas where I'm not keeping my promises as good as I can be?
SPEAKER_01: And can you give me the strength to do them well?
SPEAKER_01: So we learn if God's a promise-making God, we should value too.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing, if God's making a promise, it's worth moving forward on.
SPEAKER_01: They call them the kind of people that God is not ashamed to be called their God.
SPEAKER_01: Because when they were met with a promise, they moved forward like it was true.
SPEAKER_01: I say all this to say, hey, do you believe in the promises of God?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's impossible for some of us to believe that God's promises are good for somebody else and not good for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We say things like, Yeah, God, you're you can forgive so and so, but I don't think you can forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: And so we keep on blessing everybody else, praying for everybody else, but we don't really expect God to transform us or our situation.
SPEAKER_01: We believe, ah, you know, there's no way for me to live a life less impacted by sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's only possibility for other people because God promises that for them and not for me.
SPEAKER_01: And here we we have in Scripture that the proper response to God making a promise is to take steps as though it were true.
SPEAKER_01: So today, if God has promised you things, would you have enough faith in him to move forward like they're true?
SPEAKER_01: If he says you're forgiven, would you give yourself forgiveness?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's possible for some of us that uh we commit a sin and then we walk around on eggshells for another year because we're afraid that God hasn't really forgiven us yet.
SPEAKER_01: And what ultimately that's saying is, God, I don't think you're good at keeping your promise.
SPEAKER_01: That God, your forgiveness is it's applicable for everybody else, but it's not strong enough for me.
SPEAKER_01: Man, that's kind of sad.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of disrespectful to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So would you have that moment and say, God, if you're making this promise, I'll walk like it's true.
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand and join me in prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, your promises are good and true.
SPEAKER_01: That Lord, all throughout human history, we have evidence of you moving in our direction in so many ways.
SPEAKER_01: So, God, if that's who you are, if that's what you value, help us to respond well.
SPEAKER_01: These aren't fictional history stories that make for good cartoons and Netflix.
SPEAKER_01: This is real things in our life right now, God.
SPEAKER_01: Real evidence of you, the creator of the universe, being just and loving and faithful and interacting with us in so many ways.
SPEAKER_01: So, God, we believe that you want to interact with us today.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that the promises made by you and your son and the Holy Spirit together in our lives, Lord, as those things become clear, God, that we would move forward in them.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, you bless my friends today as we leave this place, God, to trust in your promise and to walk like it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you help us be the kind of people that are true to our word and in doing so point other people back to the promise making, God.
SPEAKER_01: So, God, we love you.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we're honored that you would even choose to make a promise with us.
SPEAKER_01: We're so unworthy, but we're thankful.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, every day we're met with your grace.
SPEAKER_01: Every failure is met with an opportunity to turn back towards you and give you our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And so, God, we do that today.
SPEAKER_01: We love you, we praise you, we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' powerful name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Church, have a great week.
SPEAKER_01: Gentlemen, we'll see you on Saturday for the men's breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: Make sure to sign up with the QR code or come and talk to me.