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Standing on the Promises Luke 24:45-49 We just sang the old hymn, Standing on the Promises, but have you ever noticed that this hymn, which is all about the great promises of God, does not contain any promises? There is not one specific promise in the entire hymn. The second verse teaches that the promises of God are supposed to be a sure foundation when the “howling storms of doubt” attack us. Standing on the promises that cannot fail, So which promises do you stand upon in times of doubt and trial? I have found that many Christians try to claim promises that God has never given while at the same time they are missing out on God’s most precious promises. If we claim something which we believe is promised to us, what happens when this thing or event does not come to pass? The end result is that we become deeply disappointed and even angry with God. When it seems that God is not fulfilling his promises we feel let down and neglected by God. We begin to doubt his other promises and even wonder if the whole Christianity thing is true. This hymn teaches that promises are supposed to take away doubts, but in reality, missed promises can actually cause more doubt. The problem is the same thing we have been talking about for the past two weeks—it is the difference between consumer Christianity and cross-centered Christianity. Consumer Christians believe that God somehow owes them a long and problem-free existence. They view God as the ultimate Vulcan from Star Trek whose only mantra is to “live long and prosper”. Then when we don’t prosper or when challenges and trials come our way, we shake our fist at God and wonder what happened to his great and precious promises. Even if you don’t get to the point of shaking your fist at God, a quiet but ever growing unbelief begins to take hold in your soul. In contrast to this, a cross-centered Christian does not look just for promises of comfort and ease, but claims those promises which are centered in the cross and the sovereign will of God. This is why consumer Christianity always leads to disappointment with God but cross-centered Christianity leads to delight with God. Let me give you two examples of a false promise. Karen’s college roommate is 41 years old, has been a missionary most of her life, has never been married but desperately wants to be married. She met this guy over a year ago and claims that they are both very compatible and have fallen in love. It makes sense to her that they should get married, but he still has cold feet. Typical guy, right? Even though she is convinced they should marry, she asked God for a sign to confirm this. She believes that the sign from God is that she has been finding an unusual number of coins lying on the ground. In the last six months she has found about 100 coins on the ground. She claims that this is statistically impossible and therefore confirms that it is definitely a sign from God. To this woman, finding coins has become her great and precious promise of marrying this particular man. She wrote this in a recent email. “I was feeling so desperate that I asked God for a sign that He really was speaking to me, and I wasn't nuts. I came back to Tom's house and found a penny right on the sidewalk in front of his house.” Just so you understand, this woman has a Master’s degree in missions from Wheaton University. She has served as a missionary for over fifteen years. She has discipled dozens of people, led many people to the Lord, and prays and studies her Bible regularly. If you asked her, she would say that she has a vibrant and committed relationship with Jesus Christ, and I have no doubt that is true. But despite all of these spiritual advantages, she has trained herself to look for promises from God by finding pennies on the dirty ground. Do you see how she is setting herself up for a major disappointment? She has shared this coin story with her boyfriend because he is also waiting for some kind of sign from heaven. It’s no surprise that he was not convinced by these so-called “pennies from Heaven”. What happens if they never get married? What will happen to her faith which at the moment is literally resting on the ground? This kind of promise sounds foolish to you and I, but what about a 41 year old single woman whose biological clock is ticking away. We need to very careful about what kinds of promises we can stand upon. If our faith depends upon promises, then we better be certain we are standing on the right ones. The first thing to do is to distinguish between promises that come form the Bible and those that do not. How about our friend—where did her promises come from? I have read through the Bible many times and I have never read about finding the will of God by looking for coins on the ground. How many times have you said this phrase—“I think God is telling me ________” and then fill in the blank? Our friend with the coins has some charismatic leanings, but you don’t have to speak in tongues to get caught in this trap. We all look for signs that something is going to turn out OK. I believe in prophecy. I believe that God still speaks to us today and can guide us in ways and words that are outside of the Scripture. But here is the huge and important warning—this kind of guidance should never be called a promise. If you believe God is telling you to quit your job and take a different job, what happens if it doesn’t work out? God may speak to you through circumstances, but you must always leave open the possibility that you are not hearing him correctly. It can be difficult enough to properly interpret the Bible, how much more trouble is there in interpreting and discerning guidance outside the Bible? About two years ago I was talking with a church planter who was just getting started in his new ministry. When he was talking about this one couple in the church, suddenly I started to get this overwhelming sense that something was wrong. This was a new thought about this couple that had never occurred to me before. And it wasn’t just a thought in my mind, it was also like enormous waves of emotion overcame me which nearly took my breath away. In other words, whatever this thought and emotion was, the sense I had was that it was not originating with me—it was coming from outside of my mind and experience. Now I believe that God can speak in this way. This church plant was just getting started and perhaps God knew that this couple was going to harm the church while they were still very vulnerable. Maybe God wanted me to warn this pastor of the impending danger. Can you guess what I did? I simply shared the immediate experience I was having and told him that I did not have any idea if this was from God, but that I had felt led to share it with him to do with as he felt necessary. Was this a leading from God? I have no idea if it was or not. As far as I know this couple is still a vital part of the ministry of this church. Perhaps it was meant for a future date or just maybe it was not from God. Maybe an evil spirit wanted me to try and discourage this church planter by giving false warnings to him. The point is that I received some kind of leading but I never assumed it was from God, let alone that it was a guaranteed promise form God. Part of what happens with consumer Christianity is that we attempt to make God in our own image. We subtly believe that God owes us something so we create these generic promises in order to assure ourselves that everything will be OK. We want promises that guarantee an idyllic, pain-free existence. In essence, we want a God who functions like a vending machine. If we drop in the right coins the perfect life comes out the bottom. This is warped theology and bad thinking and it will always lead to disappointment with God. Think about a time you have been disappointed with God. What promise or expectation were you clinging to? What false idea did you wrap around your heart? Are you like our friend who expects God to bring her a spouse with pennies from heaven? Did you expect your marriage to be better than it is? Did you expect all of your kids to turn out perfect—or if they are still young, do you now have these same expectations for their future? Do you see why you cannot blame or question God because your situation did not work out as you planned? We convince ourselves that something is true when it is just a creation of our own mind. We claim promises that were never ours to claim. I want you to avoid the pain of disappointment from such things. Good theology vs. bad theology is not just relegated to the boring classrooms of seminaries and Bible schools. Bad theology can literally ruin your life and your faith and lead to disappointment with God. On the other hand, good theology of a cross-centered life can lead to delight with God. We don’t always look for silly signs to guide us—sometimes we actually search the Scriptures for our answers. Assuming you are attempting to claim a promise from Scripture, the next question we need to ask is whether the promise is conditional or unconditional. Here is an example of a conditional promise from Leviticus 26. “If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land. And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land and no sword shall go through your land. You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.” This is a list of promises of abundant prosperity, but every promise is conditioned upon full obedience. If you follow my statutes and if you keep my commandments, then these blessings will follow. So does this mean that if I obey God that I will have an abundant harvest, and that animals and enemies will never cause me harm? In other words, is this one of the promises that I can claim? The short answer to this question is “No”. The reason is that this conditional promise was given in the context of an Israelite theocracy. God made specific promises to his people in the O.T. having to do with the land and the promise of a coming Messiah. Therefore, many of these O.T. promises cannot be lifted out of context and applied to our present lives without discernment. Another common promise is from Proverbs 22—Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Parents struggle with this one because it seems to include a guarantee of parental success. If we take our kids to church and maybe even AWANA or Bible quizzing, then they will always follow the Lord. Does your experience bear this out? No, unfortunately not every child continues to follow the Lord after they leave the home. This is a statement of proverbial wisdom which means that it will generally be true, but there is no rock solid guarantee built into the system. Once again we see our tendency to treat the Lord like a real estate contract—“God, I did my part of the bargain, now give me what’s coming to me!” A word of advice—never tell God to give you what’s coming to you.
Have I discouraged you to the point that you are beginning to think that there aren’t any promises that we can stand upon? Here is a great one from Luke 24. 45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Now here is a promise you can sink your teeth into. Part of this has already been fulfilled and part is yet to come. It was a certain promise that the Messiah would come as a sacrifice for our sins and just as assuredly, this good news of the Messiah will be preached to all nations. This is a Biblically based, sovereignly-driven, unconditional promise from the Lord—the gospel will be preached to all nations. This is an unstoppable force. Nothing can hinder the advance of the gospel. This is not one of those promises that can tell you which job offer to take or which person you should marry, but this is the kind of promise that a cross-centered Christian loves to hear. When we belt out the hymn—Standing on the Promises of God—this is the kind of promise to which we can cling and be certain.
Another one of my favorites that also relates to this promise of gospel proclamation is found in Matthew 28, “And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.” Here is an unconditional promise that can be applied to limitless situations. When you are trying to make a difficult decision, you are promised that Christ Jesus will be with you. He cannot leave you or forsake you. When you are being tossed about by the storms of life, Jesus will be walking with you. When you feel you will not be able to go even one more day with your grief and pain, Jesus can never leave you. This world is not our home—we are just a passin’ through. But we tend to want promises that make this life easier in the present when most of God’s promises have to do with the future. What promises were the great men and women of faith in Hebrews 11 clinging to? The writer of Hebrews tells us that “they did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers in earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.”
What I am saying is that there are not many guarantees in this life. All the guarantees come in the next life. We give up lesser things now to get better things later. We stand upon the promises of God that the eternal kingdom of heaven will be bright and glorious. Consumer Christians look for promises in this life. Cross-centered Christians cling to promises for the next life. What kind of Christian are you?
Rich Maurer June 25, 2006 |