Heavenly Passions For Earthly People IV, A Passion For His Promise

Let's be turning in our Bibles this morning, not to Philippians where we've been, but rather to Romans chapter 4. I am not veering from our stated course of this final week, Heavenly Passions for Earthly People, but I am going to use a different text than I anticipated, and I'll be referring to Philippians occasionally, but I want to speak to you today from Romans chapter 4 as the Lord has led. Verse 16, Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace, and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations. He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, So shall your offspring be. And without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. And this is why it was credited to him as righteousness. The words it was credited to him were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness. For us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. There are few words more beautiful in the English language than the word promise. I have a definition on an overhead I'd like you to read with me. This is the definition of a promise. A promise is a declaration or assurance made to another person with respect to the future, stating that one will do or refrain from some specific act, or that one will give or bestow some specified thing to the advantage or pleasure of the person concerned. A promise. Life is built on promises. Think of the promises over the course of your lifetime that have made a difference in your life. Think of the famous promises. General Douglas MacArthur in 1942, as he left the Bataan Peninsula and sailed to Australia, arriving on the shores, stood up in front of those who had received him and said these famous words which became a ringing promise in World War II. What were the three words? A promise. I shall return. If you've been watching TV this week, they may be fresh in your mind. I shall return. On January, I think it's the 20th, a man is going to stand and say this promise. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. A promise. A promise. What was the greatest promise that's ever been given to you? From a person. Not from God. But what's the greatest? Talk about it a second. Think about it. All right, let me help you just in case. I'm going to embarrass a newlywed couple here. Rick and Tammy, stand up. Rick and Tammy are back from their honeymoon. Isn't that great? Now, I would expect that you would say the greatest promise you ever heard is one I heard you say to each other about two weeks ago. I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be your loving and faithful husband. And is it fun yet? Okay. Thank you. They can't even talk. But all of life is built on promises. And really, dear ones, I'm sure that that's why God has revealed himself as a God of promise. God has made wonderful promises to his people. It began back in Noah's time when God promised that what? He would never destroy the world by flood again. Now, today he may have thought twice about that. But he said to Noah, I'll never do it again. And he put what in the sky as a reminder of that covenant promise. Of course, the rainbow. And all through the scripture, God reveals himself as a God of promise. But what I fear today is that we, in the midst of a heavy life, the pace, the weight of responsibility, the pressures of life, I just wonder today if we have lost sight of the power of the promises of God. And I want to just cause us to recall for a little while those promises and what they mean to us as we consider our future as a church. Because God has promised not just to preserve the earth, but incalculable blessing. Immeasurable wealth through his promises to those who love him. The thing that I so grieve over is the fact that so few people know the promises and live by them. And in fact, most of us here today are more limited than we know because we don't really know God's promise, his specific promise for our lives. Over the last three weeks, we've looked at passion. Passion for God's presence. Passion for his people. Passion last week for his purpose. And today, I want to look at passion for his promise to hunger and thirst after the promises of God that they might be fulfilled in each of our lives. I expect here in this nation in which we live, you see, the word promise has also taken on a very sour taste. Elton John gets on the radio and says, well, you know the promise I made to you four years ago, honey, I'm not going to keep now because our lives are both too busy. And we have separate careers, so we won't get any more. We'll just be best friends. You see, there's a shallowness to that kind of a promise. God didn't make promises that he just backs out on because it gets inconvenient. And better than that, dear ones, when God speaks to us, he carries with him the power to fulfill the very promises that he makes. And I'm going to share with you the fact that God's covenant is unilateral and unequivocal. God does not waver on his promises. In fact, the Bible will tell us as we'll see that in Christ, all of the promises are yes and amen. Or if you're Pentecostal, yay and amen. You see, contrary to what the world might say, promise makes for possibilities. And how many of you would say, rather than getting too caught up in my own life and too busy with my own schedule and too busy fulfilling my own little niche, I find that the promise I made 10, 20, 30 years ago to my spouse brings me satisfaction and fulfillment and enjoyment. How many say that now after 30 years or 20 years? You see, that's what God intends for the promise, to build a life, not to destroy. But what I discovered that so amazed me these last several days as I was studying was how God has woven us into the promise that he gave to Abraham. And you know, when you start talking about the Old Testament, people say, well, you know, I don't understand all that stuff. But I'm going to make it simple today. I'm going to talk about one man, a man that I identify with, a man by the name of Abraham. I identify with this man because I sense that he was a bit like me in a lot of ways. He was called to leave the comfort of an established area and nation. God called him in Genesis 12 to get up and leave and go on a journey. And I heard that same voice in 1980. And I left what was comfortable to me and what was really secure and what had promise of a lot of blessing. And I went on a journey. And like Abraham, I find myself getting impatient from time to time to seek God's fulfillment. And as I go through here today, I think you'll understand, those of you who know me, why I feel such identity with this man. And why you should too, because the Bible says that he is the father of us all. Did you read that today with me? Look at it there. I think it's verse 16. What does it say right there? What does it say? For he is the father of us all. Now, that's a very unusual scripture. Of us all. Paul knows he's talking here not just to Jews, but to Gentiles. So we have father Abraham to look at for just a few minutes today as the example of how to receive the promises of God. Now, what is this promise to Abraham? It's the first point on the outline. What is the promise to Abraham? Well, God said to him, I want you to go out from where you are and go where I tell you to go. And I'm going to do two things. And I think for the sake of continuity, I'll just tell you what they are. You can look them up later. Genesis chapter 12 and verse 3. He said, I'm going to do two things for you. I am going to make you a great nation. I'm going to give you peoples. And number two, I'm going to give you a land. People and a place. I'm going to give you posterity and a land. And that was God's blessing promise to Abraham. I'm going to give you identity, people. And I'm going to give you security, land. This is, if you will, you're all right. You're fine. You're doing great. This is God's promise to Abraham. Now, the next overhead talks about the top line. The top line. The top line is God's blessing. Now, follow this because it's going to get down to you. The top line is God's blessing. I'll give you people and I'll give you a land. I'll give you what you need to have an identity and a security. Then God said, but the bottom line is that all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. Church, let's understand clearly. God does not pour out blessings so you can get fat. God does not make it good so you can just lay back and say, isn't it wonderful to be a Christian? But God said to Abraham, I'm going to give you all these things so all the world... And by the way, mission people, the word earth, I'm sorry, the word peoples there is the word ethnos, which means nations or people groups. God's saying that all the nations, all the people groups of the world will be blessed through you. And church, that is the bottom line of the promises of God to us. There are other covenants. There's the Davidic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, all the ones we're familiar... But they really all fill out what God said to Abraham. I'm going to give you a nation and a land and I want to be, through you, a blessing to all the people. Now, what did Abraham do? What did Abraham do to receive this promise? Well, he did what most of us would do. He fretted and he fussed and he worried and he tried real hard. But it finally says in Genesis 15, 6 that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now, turn and look in Romans again with me, would you please? Let's read what he did. It said that he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded, verse 21, that God had power to do what he had promised. You see, the value of a promise is absolutely dependent upon the character of the person. If I were to stand here tonight and promise to make you a wonderful gourmet dinner tomorrow night, seven courses, you would have a difficult time saying yay and amen to that. And those of you who know my culinary abilities would say, this is something he's going to order out, you know? And you're right because I don't know the first thing about gourmet cooking. And we build our confidence based on what we know of the person. You go out and buy a used car, the guy says, this is a great car. I mean, this car has been babied. It was driven by an old grandmother back and forth to the shopping center, you know, at 116 miles an hour. You build your confidence based on the character. You see, Abraham knew God. And so Abraham had full confidence that God was able to do what he had promised to him. It says all through the Bible that God does not break his promises. And church, I'll tell you what, if we have any hope for eternal life, this better be true. I mean, this really counts when you get down to it, doesn't it? Because either God keeps his promises or he doesn't. 1 Kings 8.56, Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people. According to all that he has promised, not one word of all his good promise has he failed. Not one word. But still, you see, the promise to Abraham was delayed. The nation didn't come, the land didn't come, and Abraham got a little fussy. And what did he do? Well, he was human. I'm human, and get ready, so are you. And when the promise doesn't come, when the long-prayed-for promise of the spouse, when the promise for fulfillment in ministry, when the promise for a door to open, the promise for healing, when it doesn't come, we tend to do what Abraham did. We try to take it into our own hands. We try to make it happen, and worse than that, we start murmuring and mumbling toward God. God isn't going to keep his promise. God doesn't care about me. God isn't interested in my life. Church, there are two great moments in receiving the promise of God. The first one is conception. When all the mumbling stopped, when Abraham found in Genesis 15 that it wasn't going anywhere, it had been 15 years since he'd heard from God, Abraham finally realized that it was time to conceive the promise in him, and he conceived it by faith. You see, he believed God. And I have to say to you, many, many times, God allows us just to dribble down to where we are flat on the ground, face down, crying and kicking, and then he says, are you ready now to believe me? Now that you haven't been able to do it, now that you haven't seen it come to pass by your own energy, now that you've told everyone that I'm not going to do it, are you ready to believe me now for my promise in your life? And Isaac was born to Sarah when she was 99 and when it was impossible, humanly speaking. See, faith conceives the promise. It sees it as though it were done. It's the top line coming to pass. Now, Abraham received a promise for nations and land. But the Bible says we have a new covenant, built on better promises, Hebrews 8, 6. And everything that God purposed to do in Abraham, he surpassed in Christ. The Bible says that we who are in Christ, Galatians 3, 29, are heirs of our father Abraham and inheritors of his promises. And so think now for what that means. Think of the promises of God that Abraham received. Beyond that, what you received. We just read one a moment ago. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We received the promises, thousands of them, that Jesus told us. He told us when two or more of us gathered together, He was there in the midst. The promise of His presence. The promise of healing. The promise of the devil being delivered out of our circumstances. Resist the devil and he'll flee from us, James 4, 7. Think about all the promises that God's written in His Word. They're all in Christ, what? Yes and amen. Say it again. They're what? Say it Pentecostal style. They are yay and amen. In Christ. But if we do not avail ourselves of those promises, then we are to blame for what our life becomes. About a year ago, a young family with a little three-year-old son were riding back from a church camp where the father had been working with some teenagers and the mom was just there to help and they were driving two cars. And on the way back, the little three-year-old toddled back to the back and opened the back door of the van. And before the dad even knew what happened, all he heard was the click and saw that the little one had just fallen out of the back of the van. The mother was following the van, but fortunately not so close as to hit the baby. Both vehicles swerved off to the right. The mother ran up, found the little child already unconscious laying on the pavement. The dad picked up the little one, raced him, and it was about 30 minutes to get him to a hospital. He was unconscious. His head was swollen. The news came back from the physicians at hand that it was not a good prognosis. The baby apparently had incurred some serious brain damage and part of the skull bone had been driven down into the brain, right into the speech part where the baby would never speak again even if he did regain consciousness. And that dad began to cry out to God. And it says in this article that I read, in Psalm 112, the Bible says that my heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. And he began to just say, Lord, I don't understand this. I don't know why, but my heart is fixed. And he said something I want to read to you. He said in his words now, You can't build your house in the middle of a storm. You build your house when it's calm, when it's building weather. That's when you put the Word of God in you, the promises of God. So when the crisis comes, you've either got it there to keep you, or you don't. And over the next three weeks, holding on to the promises of God, they saw little Joshua restored. And he came back fully and began one night to say, Mommy, I'm hungry. Mommy, I'm hungry. And the whole story is beautiful. I can't tell the whole thing. But what gripped me was what he said. You see, so often in comfort and in blessing, we forget that the promises need to be stored up into our hearts. So that when the difficulties come, they'll be there for us to draw upon. It's too late when the storm hits if you haven't been building on the promises in your life. Now, the question I have is, all the blessing that we've known here, folks, many of us, how many of you would be honest and say, I'm a top liner. I've received a lot of blessing from God. Think about it. I've received a lot of blessing in Christ. And if you don't know the Lord, then I understand why your hand didn't go up. But every other person needs to understand that if you know Christ in your life, you've received forgiveness. You've received freedom from guilt. You want to know what God's best gift to us is? The ability to forget. I love the gift of being able to forget. One reason I've been able to stay unbitter as a pastor is because I forget a lot of things. It would be good for some of you to ask for that gift. It's a great gift. God's given us freedom from guilt and he's given us a future and a hope. And if you're not thankful today for a blessing, then just let this week of Thanksgiving, let it be a time of reflecting on all God's given to you. The question, however, as we move from this season of looking at our heavenly passions, is not, are you a top liner? The question is, are you a bottom liner? Are you someone who realizes that God's poured into you, not so you can just simply relax and enjoy. You do enjoy. But so that you can be a blessing to the nations. A blessing to the people that God's put us in and around, here in the North Hills, in our city, and all the rest of the Northeast. You see, Abraham hit the second point. The first one was conception. That's how the promise came. But the second one was far more difficult. What was that? That was later when God said, bring your son Isaac over here. Genesis 22. And what did He say to him? I want you to sacrifice your son. I want you to take your son that I've given to you, the promise that was conceived, I want you now to sacrifice it. I don't know about you, but every time I consider that story, we don't have time today to develop the emotion that Abraham must have felt. But how many fathers are here? Dads, let me ask you for a second. What would it be like to take that son that's seated next to you and literally lay him on an altar and say, God, if that's what you want, here he is. Now, I'm not going to ask the son about that right now. The son would probably have a different idea. But what would the dad say? You'd be questioning God, wouldn't you? What kind of God is this that's taking the promise back? What kind of God is this that's asking for my own son? But you know, the Bible tells us, if you read carefully in Genesis 22, it tells us that Abraham knew that it wasn't going to happen. He said to his servant who was holding his camel or his donkey, what did he say? The boy and I will be back. I love that. We're going to be back. I may have to go through it, and in fact, it says in Hebrews 11 that Abraham thought that by faith he'll receive him back from the dead. That's how confident he was in God's promise. I identify with Abraham because you see, this church came back from the dead for me. In October of 1980, I was as good as dead to this vision. I had committed my life and my family to move to New York City. We had agreed that that was where God was going to send us in order to be obedient. I didn't really want to go, but I felt that the Lord had given me circumstantial evidence and even some agreement in prayer that that was what I was to do, and so I agreed to go. And I'll never forget, and I've told this story too many times to reiterate it in detail here. I'll never forget the phone call that came ten days after I'd been in New York saying that whatever had taken place in this whole deal that I went through with a particular church up there, it wasn't to be. And God sovereignly closed the door for me to move to New York City, and we had a prayer meeting that night in a home. We gathered together and sought the Lord, and a word of prophetic utterance came forth, a spiritual gift from God. It said, And now even as Abraham laid his Isaac on the altar, so you, my son, have laid your Isaac on the altar. And now I can give him back to you with my blessing. You see, you're the Isaac that God's raised up. Not because I'm special, but because God tested me to see if I was willing to take this vision and just lay it down. And I want you to know something. It isn't until you take whatever great thing you have and lay it down that God's free to bless it. Because you'll always own it. You'll always possess it. It will always be yours and not God's. And so whatever happens with the North Way Christian community, it's God's choosing. It's God's blessing. Now here's the thing that's tricky. You know what I discovered? I have to keep going back. I have to keep going back to that. Because I keep wanting to take it and say, Oh, it's mine now. I want to do it this way, Lord. I want it this way, Lord. And can I challenge some of you today? Maybe the reason why the blessing you so yearn for in your life isn't quite there yet is because you're taking it back. Instead of saying, Lord, I lay it down. The recognition that I need, the importance that I need, the authority that I need, I lay it down and I let You take it. I multiply it and make it what You want it to become. You see, it's then that Abraham knew God, not as El Shaddai, El being the impersonal word for God, but as Jehovah Jireh, the Lord Yahweh, my provider. It was then, not until then, that God knew, that Abraham knew God as my provider. It's when you lay it down, that's when you know God personally in that fashion. My conviction of these last seven and a half years is this, that God has brought us to a place, as a church, where He's poured in blessing, top-line blessing, top-line blessing. The question He's asking us now is, will we be bottom-line believers? Will we sacrifice the blessing for the sake of the thousands and thousands that God would purpose to bring into the kingdom through this church? And I want to conclude with this illustration for you today. Some weeks ago, I went away for one day to seek the Lord. I mentioned this to you a while back, and I went up to Clarion because I wanted to be far enough away that I couldn't be tracked down by well-wishers. And I was offered a place to stay, very kindly by a friend of someone here in the church, and when I arrived there, it was down in a valley and down where the trees were kind of growing over it, and so on. And for a number of reasons, the place I had been invited to stay just wasn't going to work out. There wasn't any heat. It was a cold, damp day. The water wasn't right. A few other things. So I decided, well, I only had a day. I might as well go someplace where I can at least not be concerned with all these details. So I drove just a couple miles down the road and stopped in a couple of different motels just to see what would be quiet because I wanted a quiet place. And I ended up getting moved around a couple times and ended up that my room, just a little two-story place, looked out over a golf course. It was a very restful kind of scene. It was quiet. I sat down and opened up my Bible and some of the books I brought with me and began to pray. Forty-five minutes later, there was a little thunderstorm. It wasn't a big deal. I looked out and maybe 15 minutes after the storm had started, there was this movement in the clouds and a rainbow appeared. It was a pretty rainbow, but not particularly dramatic. And I noticed. I said, Oh, Lord, it's really me. You're so creative. I went back to my study. About 30 minutes later, another thunderstorm came rolling through. I mean, it was a lot more powerful. And following that thunderstorm, it's now about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I looked out my window and it's as though God was saying, You missed it the first time. I want you to see something. And I looked out the window and this rainbow appeared. It was the most brilliant rainbow that I'd ever seen in my life. And it was so close that I literally could see both ends of it. I don't know if you've ever seen it. I could see both ends. And I don't know enough about physics to know what all is happening there. I grabbed my camera, which I brought with me. And I've got these pictures of this rainbow that almost looks like I'm standing in it. And God spoke to my heart. And if this is a strange thing for someone to say to you, then I understand where you're coming from. But God spoke to my heart and said, I have made My promise to you. And I will keep My covenant to you. And I knew what He was talking about. He wasn't just talking about me and my salvation. He was talking about us. I have made My promise. And I want you to know God said to my heart that I'm going to keep it. And so you see, my confidence, church, with regards to the future of this assembly, isn't in prelude to a promise. It's not in hard work. It's in God's ability to keep His promise. And I want to commend Him to you today. You can participate in that promise by believing God. Believe God. Give Him praise for what He's done in your life and what He's going to do. Show Him that you're serious by turning from all the mumbling and all the reasons why I want to begin to praise Him for the fact that it will happen. That He has made a promise. And that in Christ, in whom you live, all of His promises are yes and amen. To you and to this church. And that is our future. As we stand in His promises and grow together. I'm confident in God. And I'm looking forward to what He's going to do. You see, we are part of Abraham. Part of the 4,000 years. You have that overhead? The 4,000 years of redemptive history. Abraham 2,000 years before Christ stood and God said, I'm going to give you a nation and I'm going to give you a land. And we stand 2,000 years on the other side of Christ. We are a holy nation. A rare treasure. And God's given us a land. A place to occupy. His kingdom land. We're part of God's purpose. You're not an accident. You're not just holding on until you retire. You're a man, a woman, a destiny. And God's covenant promise will fulfill it. Amen? Let's stand together. Lord, I bless Your holy name. I thank You, Lord, for the power that You have released and revealed in Your Son, Jesus. We're going to stand together, Lord, on those promises. We're going to stand together on those promises. And Father, my heartfelt prayer today is that everyone who has lost track of the future, lost track of the power of the promises of God, would have their faith rekindled today to believe You. To not waver, but to get into the Word and find the promises that You've ordained for their life. In Jesus' name. I want us to sing a hymn together. Come on up here. I need all the worship team please to come up. Are we ready? We're going to sing a hymn I haven't sung this one in 10 years, so help me out, alright? How many of you know it's called Standing on the Promises? Let's try it. Standing on the promises.