The Promise Guaranteed Romans 4:1-8, 13-17; Genesis 12:1-9; John 3:1-17

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and our Lord, Jesus Christ, who keeps His Gospel promise.

 

We’re going to talk about a promise that is fully guaranteed, based on our Epistle …that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed.

 

There are many promises made in this world, all kinds of guarantees. 

 

When you combine a faithful promise with an authentic guarantee, it makes something you can be certain of and depend on. 

 

On the other hands, there are those promises in this world that prove to be fickle; and some guarantees that are empty. 

 

I’ve heard some people who’ve taken out an extended warranty on something, a cell phone or a laptop, or an appliance, or a car, and say it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, while others say they’re glad they did; it paid out well. 

 

It just depends on the guarantee, what it is and who’s making it. 

 

Sometimes we may make promises we can’t deliver on. 

 

In the popular sitcom, The Office, the manager, Michael Scott, had made a promise to a classroom of third graders, that if they stayed in school and graduated, he would pay for their college education, all of it for all of them.

 

The next thing he knew, they were all high school seniors and about to graduate, and Michael had to tell them that he had just said that, He wasn’t going to pay their tuition. 

 

They were let down, to say the least.

 

Sometimes we might make a promise we can’t keep; we may have meant well, but overestimated ourselves. 

 

But then there are those promises that are deliberately meant deceive, false promises, like the promise the devil made to Adam and Eve, that if they trusted him and ate the forbidden fruit, they would become as great and powerful as God.

 

That was a promise guaranteed to fail in every way.

 

Everything that’s contrary to the Word and will of God has that same guarantee attached – it’s guaranteed to fail you, and everybody. 

 

It’s kind of like the fine print that’s on the back page of the document, and easy to overlook, but meant to provide a way out of the guarantee.

 

That’s what false and worldly promises looks like, but that’s not what God’s promises look like.

 

God doesn’t look for a way out of what He’s promised us. Quite the opposite – everything He does is meant to fulfill His promises.

 

He made a bold promise when He told Adam and Eve that someday their offspring, the Messiah, would crush the devil who had misled them, and in doing so, overcome the power of sin, and the dominion of death.

 

The Bible is the story of how He did that, how God never forgot His promise made to His first children and all their offspring, but fulfilled it through His Son.

 

In our Old Testament, God had this great promise in mind, when called Abraham to trust Him, and to go wherever He would lead him.

 

God led him to the land where the Messiah would someday be born, and live, and die, and rise. God gave Abraham a preview of the Promised Land. 

He promised Abraham, “Go from your country and … your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great… so that you will be a blessing…  and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”, that is, all who would believe in the Messiah.

 

So, what made Abraham great? Not Abraham, but God. 

 

Not Abraham’s deeds, but his faith, as we’re told in our Epistle. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”    

 

And believing, faith, is by grace, the gift of God. 

 

Had Abraham not trusted God, that He would keep His promise to be with him and greatly bless him with many descendants, then Abraham never would have left his comfortable life in Harran, to go on a long and dangerous journey to see the land where his offspring would someday live, especially considering that he was 75 years old and his wife, Sarah, was 65, and at that point in their lives, they had no children to someday populate that land.

 

It was all faith in God, that He could and would deliver on His promises, guaranteed! 

 

There would be a people, a nation, descended from Abraham and Sarah, from which the Messiah would come, and would keep God’s promise to save His people. 

 

When the time came for the promise to be fulfilled, and God’s Son to be born, as much as He loved His Son, God didn’t renege on the promise, even though it meant that His Son would be lifted up on a cross to die.

 

Jesus told Nicodemus, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (on the cross) that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 

 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

 

From the beginning, Jesus knew what He had to do, and He didn’t try to find a way out of keeping God’s promise to win salvation for the world. 

 

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before He died, Jesus prayed, and He asked if there might be another way to keep the promise to win salvation for the world, some way that didn’t involve Him having to suffer and die by crucifixion. 

 

As we heard in our passion reading last Wednesday evening, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

 

There was no other way, so Jesus courageously obeyed. 

 

He had all kinds of opportunities to try to wiggle out of it, or talk His way out, but He didn’t succumb to the temptation.

 

Even before Pilate, Jesus was silent, and kept the promise that He would die for us.

 

Even when He hung in agony on the cross, and His mockers provoked Him, shaking their heads, Mark writes in His Gospel, and saying, “So, You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, come down from the cross!” 

 

Jesus could have done it, easily, in a moment, but as He had told Peter and His disciples in the Garden, But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so? 

 

God’s innocent Son must die, that the world might live, the great exchange.

 

Jesus didn’t, and would never, break His Father’s promise. Through His Son, God’s promise to win our salvation was guaranteed. 

 

But never has there been a promise so difficult to keep. 

 

God keeping His promise to hand over His Son, whom he loved so dearly, to be tortured and crucified by His enemies, to allow that to happen, was the hardest thing for Him to do, the most difficult promise to keep. 

 

But the Father and the Son, kept the Promise. And now, we, God’s faithful children, are forever blessed.

 

Trusting in Him, our salvation is guaranteed, 100%!

 

When we were, or will be, confirmed, we made a promise, the most important promise we’ve ever made, or ever will make: to be faithful to our Triune God, and to His true and holy Word, and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from Him.

 

May God grant you the grace and strength to keep that promise, for it comes with a guarantee, a pledge that that God will bless His faithful ones forever.

 

May God bless you always, as you live by faith and serve the Lord with love, and may the promise of His peace, which passes understanding, guard your heart and mind, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whom our forgiveness and life and salvation, are guaranteed. Amen.