Our passage this morning is out of the book of Hebrews. We’re going to be picking up where we left off a few weeks ago in Hebrews, Hebrews 6:13-20. As always I’ll be reading out of the English Standard Version.
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:13-20
This is the word of the Lord. Well when I was a kid I had a paralyzing fear, not of monsters under the bed or anything like that, but rather I had a fear of natural disasters. The prospect of a volcanic eruption, even though we live nowhere near a volcano, or a hurricane even though we didn’t live anywhere near a coast, or that of an earthquake even though we didn’t live on a fault line, were the kind of irrational fears that kept me up at night.

As a kid now growing up in south central Pennsylvania, none of those potential disasters were in actuality real threats that I had to worry about. That’s why I call them irrational fears. I think the rational part of me knew that all along, but there was always one natural disaster that was a possibility, however remote that possibility was. This is a natural disaster that stood as the dominant fear among all natural disasters, and that was tornadoes. When the sky began to darken in the spring or summer months and the wind picked up speed, I always grew concerned that a tornado was going to drop down from the sky in my backyard and take our house away.

So when it looked like inclement weather was building on the horizon the first place I’d go for reassurance was my dad. I would ask my dad point blank, “Dad is there going to be a tornado?” To which he would usually respond something like, “Son you don’t have anything to worry about, you’re going to be fine.” That typically wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t a satisfying enough response for a young boy as frightened as I was about tornadoes. I needed something certain.

So I’d follow up with the desperate question, “Do you promise Dad, do you promise that there’s not going to be a tornado?” Again my dad would wisely reassure me in the best way that he could. Yet more often than not, despite the words that he spoke to comfort me, I didn’t trust his words that I had nothing to fear. Deep down inside I knew that wasn’t something my dad could ever infallibly promise. Even though a tornado was a remote possibility, and even if there was a tornado I knew my dad would do everything in his power to keep me safe, he couldn’t guarantee one hundred percent that there wouldn’t be a tornado. Even if he did, I think I would have known that it wasn’t a promise he could have ultimately guaranteed.

Friends, the fact of the matter is we tend to have a skeptical relationship towards the words of other people. Oftentimes someone’s yes or no just frankly isn’t good enough for us, especially when there’s big things like a tornado on the line. In those cases there’s always a desire to have somebody back up their words in some way, so we know that they’re good for it.

Then there are other times in our lives where we all know people commit to doing something. They commit to doing this or that, and even when the best of intentions are involved, human weakness sometimes kicks in and someone pulls back on their commitments. Then we’re often left in the wake of that wondering whether people, even when promises and commitments are made and broken, whether they can really be trusted in the end.

After all how many of us have seen, and maybe some of you have even experienced, one of the deepest commitments a person could make to one another, ‘til death do us part, rendered null and void. Experiences like that can leave us wondering, can people really be trusted to keep their word?

Yet while skepticism towards the words and promises of others persists in this broken and sinful world, are we also skeptical in the same way towards the promises of God? Understand that while we hope people are trustworthy, we know all too well that people break their promises and commitments. That’s just a fact of life. However when the Lord makes promises and when the Lord commits himself to doing something, the Bible teaches us that those are promises that are set in stone. Those are promises that we can trust. Those are promises we can rest in.

Well it often seems that the longer we live, the less that we trust people. God would desire that the more we grow as Christians, the more we would come to that realization and trust in his promises more and more too. In fact our perseverance as Christians depends upon learning to trust God and take God at his word.

So our big idea this morning is this Persevering faith is persuaded by God’s promises.

We have two points this morning, but don’t think that the sermon’s going to be any shorter because we have two points, I have a number of sub points too.

1. The Example of Abraham
2. Assurance for the Heirs of Abraham
The Example of Abraham
So let’s start with the first point, the example of Abraham. You may recall that when we left off our previous passage a few weeks ago, whenever we were in Hebrews last, we heard in verse 12 our author give an exhortation to persevere. Specifically to persevere as Christians, to grow in spiritual maturity, to press forward in our knowledge of God. Also press into the gospel by being imitators of those, who through faith and patience, inherit the promise that’s a quote out of verse 12 of our of the passage, the one right before we’re studying today.

Now ultimately our perseverance and endurance in the Christian life is guaranteed by the promise of God. Our growth in the Christian life is ensured by the presence of the Spirit of God. The Lord also, in his grace, in his mercy, and in his wisdom, gives us various examples in the faith. Examples that demonstrate God’s grace to look to as an aid to our growth.

Now our author brings one of those examples forward as a witness to aid us as we press forward in spiritual maturity, as we press forward and grow in perseverance, and approach God’s promises with more and more confidence. That example he brings forward is Abraham, we read about Abraham in verse 13.

In verse 13 our author invokes the person of Abraham and he tells us something important, something simple but also something really important, about Abraham. That is long ago God made a promise to Abraham.

So, what’s he looking back to with that reference? Well if we turn to the book of Genesis, to chapters 12 through 25, about 14 chapters in total, we would hear quite a bit about the life of Abraham. We hear about how God on a number of occasions spoke to Abraham and gave Abraham promises.

The first time this happens is in the book of Genesis chapter 12, where we hear about this nobody from a pagan household named Abraham and how he’s uniquely called by God. Not because of anything Abraham did or didn’t do, but because of God’s grace alone God picked out this man Abraham. He called him and after calling Abraham, God issued Abraham a remarkable promise.

This is what he says to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, the very first promise we read to Abraham in the book of Genesis,
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred 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. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”Genesis 12:1-3, ESV
So the Lord promises Abraham, this man who we come to learn has no children, that he would bless Abraham with so many descendants, that he would eventually become an ancestor of a great nation. Then he promises Abraham as well land for this nation to live in and reside and grow. Through this nation residing in this land, the idea was all the nations of the earth, all the families of the earth, would also be blessed.

Now these are incredible promises, especially because we come to discover rather quickly after Genesis 12 that Abraham’s wife is sadly barren. So how’s this promise, we’re left asking ourselves, ever going to get off the ground? It’s an incredible promise, but is it a realistic promise?

Well as the chapters drag on and on, through Genesis 12 and then 13 and then 14 and 15 and 17 the Lord repeats the same promise over and over again. He tells Abraham in Genesis 15 for example,
5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Genesis 15:5, ESV
Again at this point Abraham still doesn’t have any kids and his wife Sarah is barren. They’re only getting older in age, and yet the Lord at no point abandons his promise. At no point does he retract what he said earlier in Genesis 12. Instead he double clicks on it. Multiple times throughout the entire narrative of Abraham, the Lord we find is committed to Abraham. He’s committed to his promises. He’s committed to forming a people for his own possession. Even though Abraham has doubts from time to time, he nonetheless learns that the more and more he hears this promise, that the Lord is good, that the Lord can be trusted. He eventually receives these promises by faith.

Then the ultimate test of the Lord’s promises comes in Genesis 22. When Genesis 22 rolls around, we learn that Abraham and Sarah have in fact been blessed with a son. They’ve been blessed with Isaac and it seems that at last this great promise given to Abraham, which once seemed impossible, is finally getting off the ground. God’s promise, it seems, has picked up momentum.

Yet when we open up to Genesis 22 we read something somewhat disturbing. The Lord commands Abraham to take Isaac up on a mountain and offer him as a sacrifice. So how would God’s promises come to pass if the heir, the one that the promise depends upon, is ultimately sacrificed?

Well this is the objection that we might have as readers coming to Genesis 22. If we had that objection, we’d be alone in it because when we watch Abraham interact with God’s promises, we see that he puts up no objections. He doesn’t fight God when the Lord commands him to do this. Not because the Lord’s command is easy for him to stomach, but because he’s learned over the course of a lifetime that the Lord is trustworthy and that the word of the Lord is reliable.

So Abraham proceeds as the Lord commands because he trusts that even though he doesn’t understand what the Lord is up to in this particular situation, he trusts that the Lord is faithful. He’s seen enough in his life to know that the Lord is faithful. So he obeys and this obedient disposition of Abraham is actually reflected upon later in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 11:19 where we learn that Abraham considered that God was able even to raise Isaac from the dead, which figuratively speaking he did receive him back. Understand that Abraham obeyed not because this was easy, but because he trusted in the Lord’s promises so much that he knew even if he had to go through with the sacrifice of Isaac that God had the power to raise Isaac from the dead. Then that’s figuratively speaking what happened in Genesis 22.

You may know the story that just as soon as Abraham prepares to offer Isaac as a sacrifice the Lord intervenes and stops Abraham. He then gives Isaac back to Abraham and the Lord provides a substitute ram that’s caught in the thicket, to sacrifice in Isaac’s place. Then finally we read this in Genesis 22:15-18,
15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his[a] enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Genesis 22:15-18, ESV
Now notice that the Lord repeats his promise, the same promise that we’ve read throughout the narrative of Abraham, once again. However, this time he adds something else to that promise, namely he adds to that promise an oath. Now if you’re looking back at our passage in Hebrews this is what the author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 6:13-14, when he’s actually reflecting upon the story from Genesis 22. He even cites part of Genesis 22 in verse 14, in order to tell us that at this point in Abraham’s life God gave to Abraham a promise. Then he backed up that promise with an oath.

Now we come across oaths and vows throughout the Bible and the purpose of an oath or a vow is to give your word some weight or some gravitas. Those, we learn in the scriptures, shouldn’t be taken for every little thing, Jesus makes that point in the New Testament. In order to back up our words on something big, God’s people are instructed in the scriptures to take oaths and vows. When they do they are commanded to swear by the name of the Lord.

Now we’re familiar with this practice of oath taking from life in our civil society too. For example we take oaths if we’re ever called upon to testify on the witness stand in a trial. Often that involves setting your hand on the Bible and swearing by the name of the Lord that you’ll tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Also when two people get married they take oaths to each other in the presence of God. Then even when people become members of the church we ask people to submit themselves to commit to five membership vows. You’re taking oaths and vows when you become members of a church. It’s a big thing to become a member and that’s why we ask oaths and vows for that too.

R.C. Sproul once wrote, “the reason we have oaths and vows is that all people are liars.” Because of that it’s fitting that from time to time, on the really big, the really important stuff of life, that we take oaths and vows, that we take a vow to someone greater. Again it’s a practice we see in the scriptures and that’s a practice we’re familiar with from life in the church and in civil society.

That raises the question, what about God? If all people are liars and that’s the reason why we take oaths and vows, what about God who never lies? Why does God here take an oath when he can’t lie? Well, first unlike us God doesn’t take an oath because he can’t be trusted, in fact God isn’t taking an oath at all because of his trust issues. He’s taking an oath in this passage because of our trust issues. In other words the Lord takes an oath so that we, because of our weaknesses, because of our doubts, because of our skepticism towards other people in this world, would at least be more confident in his promises.

Now it’s absolutely true that when God makes a promise that is absolutely certain that promise will come to pass. He doesn’t need to take an oath he doesn’t need to take a vow, but when God takes an oath it’s as if he’s shining the spotlight on his promise. On really important promises it’s as if to say, hear this promise and know that because I’m true to my word I am definitely going to go through with it.

Then for God, our author tells us, that since there’s no one greater by whom to swear,the Lord swears by himself. He binds himself to his promises for the sake of Abraham’s faith and for the sake of ours. He puts his reputation on the line, as it were, to assure Abraham and to assure us that while there are many promises in this world that end up being broken, many oaths and vows that likewise come crumbling down to the ground, when the Lord makes a promise we can be certain. When the Lord backs up that promise with an oath, we can be doubly certain that the Lord will do exactly what the Lord says.

Of course this happened miraculously in the life of Abraham, such that he even believed the Lord would raise Isaac from the dead if he ended up having to go through with the sacrifice. That same confidence that Abraham had to grow in and eventually had by the time we roll around Genesis 22 is instructive for us as well.

Yet one of our problems is that very often we don’t know what God promises and what he doesn’t promise. In other words one of our problems is that we expect things of God things that God in fact never promises. Then when God doesn’t carry through with something that he never promised in the first place, well we’re disappointed. We end up thinking to ourselves that something must be lacking in God rather than in our understanding of God’s purposes and promises.

To give an illustration of this in the late 1800’s, there was a New England minister by the name of William Miller who spent much of his time and energy engaging in something I’ll call Bible math. If that sounds odd, well because it was. He spent much of his time studying the Bible to calculate when he thought Christ would return. Based specifically on Daniel 8, Miller first calculated that Jesus was definitely going to return in March of 1843. When that date passed and no apocalyptic event happened, he went back to the drawing board. He recalculated some numbers and then at last he concluded that Christ is going to come again on October 22nd 1844.

Well when he announced that to the world, word spread quickly and it spread for months, so much that a movement was formed in the wake of it called the Millerite Movement. By some calculations it garnished something between 30,000 to 100,000 followers. He and his followers waited and they waited with confidence that October 22, 1844 was going to be the day.

Of course Christ didn’t come again on October 22, 1844. In the wake of what became known as “The Great Disappointment”, many of Miller’s followers were deflated. They were discouraged and one even reported that he was sick to his stomach with the pain of disappointment, basically unable to get out of bed for two days.

To understand that when we put all of our eggs into a basket that God never promises to bless, disappointment is going to inevitably follow. Miller and his followers were so convinced, based on fringe misguided calculations that the scriptures promised that Jesus was going to return on October 22, 1844, that they didn’t appreciate the Bible’s clear teaching that you don’t know the day or the hour when Christ is going to come back. As a result many didn’t know how to move forward after suffering that demoralizing spiritual blow.

Now brothers and sisters it’s most certainly true that God promises a number of things in his word. He promises that all who put their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation will receive eternal life now and in the age to come and we will most certainly never lose that salvation in Christ. He promises us belonging, he promises that we belong to himself and that we belong to a people too. He promises that he’ll provide. He promises that he’ll never leave and nor forsake us. There are a number of very rich promises that God makes in his word.

When we come across these promises we should know that these have the backing of God himself. In the same way it probably feels more secure to know that your bank accounts are backed by the federal government, so too God’s promises are backed by himself, the God of all the universe. Thus we have every reason to be confident in them.

Do you know the promises of God or, like William Miller and his followers, are you expecting God to do something that his word doesn’t promise? Are you expecting God to bless something that he doesn’t promise he’ll ever bless? Now there are a lot of reasons why we can grow in our walk with Christ sinfully cynical towards God and his people. There are a lot of ways in which that can happen, but one of the ways that’s virtually guaranteed to happen is if you put all of your eggs in the basket thinking that God is going to carry through something that he never promises. Then you hold God to those expectations. In those cases friends you’ll always be disappointed.

So, do you know God’s promises? Ask yourself that and study his word to know his promises. As you reflect on that question for yourself, let’s move to our second point where we hear a bit more about the assurance that we have in the Christian life through the example of Abraham. Specifically through the promise that was given to Abraham thousands of years ago.
Assurance for the Heirs of Abraham
So in the second part of our passage, beginning in verse 17 or so our author tells us that what happened in the life of Abraham has huge implications for us today as we live our Christian lives. The first thing we hear in verse 17 is that when God swore a promise to Abraham, back in Genesis 22, that wasn’t a promise for Abraham alone. Again in verse 17 are author writes,
17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath,
Hebrews 6:17, ESV
Now notice what our author tells us there, he tells us that what God did in the life of Abraham thousands of years ago wasn’t for the sake of Abraham alone. In fact it was for the sake of the heirs of the promise. So who are these heirs? Well to be an heir is to be someone who receives an inheritance and typically someone’s inheritance goes to their children. In any estate or family an heir is typically a child and heir is typically the natural offspring of somebody else.

However, according to the Bible, the heirs of Abraham aren’t those who are physically descended from Abraham. The heirs of Abraham aren’t those who can look at a genealogy or go to one of those genealogy websites and trace their lineage back physically to Abraham. Rather the Bible tells us that the heirs of Abraham are all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul tells us this in Galatians 3:29,
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Galatians 3:29, ESV
So if you trust in Jesus Christ today friends, know that you are an heir of the promise. If you are in Christ, the promise and oath that was sworn to Abraham thousands of years ago is for you. This is what that means if you recall back in Genesis 12 when God promised that he would make Abraham into a nation and that nation would be a blessing to all the families of the earth, and then we learned that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the sea, well that promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in the church.

In other words if you want to know whether or not God’s word can be trusted, whether or not God’s promises are unchangeable, whether or not God keeps his word, look around you right now. The church, and more particularly the worldwide church, is a testimony to the truthfulness of God’s unchangeable promises. Open your eyes and look around the body, look around at your coheirs, those who are also resting on Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and know that the Lord is more than faithful to bring all of his promises to completion for you and for your salvation. You are an heir of Abraham in Christ and in Christ Jesus you have therefore been blessed.

It’s not just God’s unchangeable promise that we see in the church today that gives us confidence that God is trustworthy, it’s also his trustworthy character as well. So as we continue to study our passage we notice in verses 17 and 18 that our author has some specific things to say about God too. Things that undergird we might say or make sense of why God’s promise to Abraham never changed and was never abandoned at any point in the history of human sin and rebellion.

First we hear about the unchangeable character of his purposes. Now we just heard a moment ago that God’s promises don’t change, he never abandons his promise, he never abandoned his promise to Abraham. God’s unchangeable purposes are rooted in the fact that God is himself an unchangeable God. In Malachi 3:6 the Lord declares,
“For I the Lord do not change; Malachi 3:6, ESV
Friends, that’s good news because it means that we can always be confident of the God we’re approaching. This isn’t a capricious god or a tyrant who you don’t want to catch on a bad day, this is the Lord who doesn’t change in his mercy, in his love, his goodness, his holiness, and his justice. Therefore he most certainly doesn’t change in his promises either.

To draw a contrast by way of illustration, one passage I think of along these lines in the Bible is that of Esther chapters four through five. When Queen Esther, you may know the story, is encouraged to go into the throne room of King Ahasuerus, who’s the Persian king of the day, to petition him on a really important matter. Now in leading up to that event where Esther in fact does go into the throne room of the king, the passage in Esther gives us a little bit of background information to root what Esther is about to do.

It tells us that for one to approach the King of Persia, in those days, without being called was a risky thing to do. In fact in the Persian royal court the king, the king would have had men that were arrayed around him who held axes. So if somebody wandered into the courtroom without being called, these people with axes would have to kill the person who came into the king’s presence without being called, unless the king held out his scepter. If the king held out his scepter and you touched the scepter, then you were all good, then you could be saved and you’d be spared. That happened in Esther’s life.

Yet to enter the king’s court without being summoned was a terrifying thing to do because you never knew what version of the king you were going to get. What if the king was having a bad day, what if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or what if he found you irritating and he never told you he found you irritating. Well you can never be certain.

Yet when we approach the Lord God in the name of Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear. Yes we should stand in all of his holiness and of his majesty, and the way we speak of God and the way we speak to God really does matter. However we know that God’s character isn’t going to change like the character of the King of Persia. We might change yes and we often do, but God doesn’t change and therefore we can be certain in the God that we’re approaching.

Every single day the God we approach in worship is the same God yesterday, today, and forever. The God we approach in prayer is the same God yesterday, today, and forever. So God doesn’t change and that’s a great comfort for us as we approach the Lord.

Then we also hear a closely related declaration that God also doesn’t lie. It’s not within his character to lie. In fact the one in whose character it is to lie, Jesus tells us, is Satan or the devil. Jesus tells us that when he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. For God to speak out of his own character, we are guaranteed that we receive nothing but the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Now we may have heard lie after lie from people in our own lives, people that we might have thought at one point were trustworthy. If that’s your experience, take comfort in the fact that it’s impossible for God to lie. Lies are not part of God’s character, it’s as much not part of God’s character as walking through walls as part of our character. So, therefore we really can trust what God says in his word because his character is trustworthy and his promises are unchangeable. So, we rest in God’s truthful character and truthful promises and unchanging character. The same character that Abraham came to know in his own life.

Then finally we also hear that we have assurance in God’s promises because of God’s steadfast son. So finally in verses 19 through 20 our author brings everything that he said thus far to a climactic conclusion when he says that we can trust the Lord. We can trust his promises, we can trust his word, we can trust his character because of Jesus Christ. Yes, we know that God is trustworthy because of his promise to Abraham, we know that he’s trustworthy because of his character, and finally and more importantly we know that God is trustworthy because of what he did in his son our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, what specifically does he tell us about Christ? Well he tells us a few things, for one thing he tells us that Jesus is our sure and steadfast anchor for the soul, a hope that enters into the inner places behind the curtain. Now there are a number of metaphors used here to describe Jesus and his work and the first one is that of an anchor. Now we all know what an anchor does, an anchor falls off a boat or is driven off a boat and it goes to the depths of the sea to secure a boat in the water.

Jesus is a different kind of anchor. He’s an anchor that’s no less secure, but he’s also an anchor that although he did go down for a time into the depths, he was then raised and ascended to heaven. In that sense the anchor that we have is an anchor that goes upwards into the heavenly places and anchors us to the throne of God.

The second image we come across is of this imagery of Jesus passing through the curtain. Now understand that in the Old Testament temple, where the Jews worshiped and offered sacrifices day by day, that there was one place in the temple, the so-called Holy of Holies, that was off limits to everybody but the high priest, who could only enter it once a year. It was the center room in the temple that was meant to symbolize God’s throne room, as heavenly throne room on earth. It was blocked off by a very thick curtain.

So when our author tells us that Jesus passed through the curtain, he’s not necessarily telling us that Jesus passed through some physical building in Jerusalem. Instead he’s telling us that when Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification that he ascended into heaven and he entered into the real deal, he entered into God’s heavenly throne room for us and for our salvation.

Then finally we hear that when Jesus did that he did this as the forerunner on our behalf. Now this is language that was used in the day of a military scout going before the front lines to scout things out so that his troops could follow safely. In the same way Jesus has gone before us into the heavenly places, not so that we would forever remain at a distance from God or from Christ, but so that we could one day follow in his trail.

Friends know that God is trustworthy, God is committed to his people, God holds out amazing promises to us, and because of Jesus Christ the incarnate word we can trust God to be true to everything he has promised. Because even now we have access to the promises of God through Jesus Christ.
Application
So how then should we think to apply this passage or what are some takeaways that we could take from this? Well I only have one application for us to consider this morning and it’s this wait on the Lord.

So we heard in our passage that Abraham had to wait patiently for the Lord’s promises and even then after waiting patiently he didn’t see the full realization of the promise that was made to him, the promise that would only be fulfilled finally in Jesus Christ and in the body of Christ the church. Nevertheless Abraham had to wait, he had to wait through many long years, many nights of suffering, many days of sin before the Lord would finally bring about his promise for he and Sarah to bear a son Isaac.

He had to wait when this promise seemed even more unrealistic too, but he waited and he waited by faith. The result of that was when we get to Genesis 22 we find a man who may not have understood everything that God was up to, he certainly didn’t, but he was confident. So confident in the Lord’s promises because he trusted that God was so good to his word that he could even raise Isaac from the dead if that would be necessary. So Abraham is an exemplary example of waiting on the promises of God.

How are you at that? How do you do waiting on the Lord? Understand that in the Bible, again the Lord promises that he’ll satisfy us. He promises many things. He promises he’ll satisfy us, he promises he’ll comfort us, and he calls us to follow him in very ordinary ways so that we would receive those promises.

For example we’re called to be committed to the local church and called to worship the Lord regularly in the context of the local church. We’re called to pray regularly, actually Paul tells us to pray without ceasing and pray the promises of God. We’re called to pursue a life of repentance and we’re called to be salt and light wherever the Lord calls us.

In short the Lord gives us many promises and then he tells us in his word how to wait on his promises. What he calls us to be about as we wait on his promises are very ordinary things and he calls us to be long-suffering and patient in those very ordinary things. Yet how many of us know how to wait well?

Accordingly I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we can be quite impatient in the ways that we wait on God and his promises. Sometimes we grow bored with the ordinary things he calls us to pursue for our growth. We want flashier things than boring old word and sacrament. We want to be about changing the world, we don’t want to be dependent on a Lord through prayer when it seems like he’s taking far too long to bring his promises to fulfillment. We want things in an instant, we want things on demand, and yet the Lord calls us to wait on him in very ordinary ways.

Then how do we wait on the Lord when we have a dark night of the soul, a spiritual darkness in a season of our lives? I think in those instances our inclination is to get past that suffering as quickly as possible. We don’t want to sit in that, and that’s understandable, but sometimes the way we go about that is to seek comfort and satisfaction in ways that even bring us to disobey God and the commands that he’s issued in his word.

Then how do we wait on the Lord when things are difficult? In church life, you know sometimes it can feel exhausting when it seems to take so long for others in the church to get their act together and if you’re thinking that about someone right now. Know that they’re probably thinking that about you too and as a result we become cynical towards people in the body. We become disillusioned with the church after living among fellow sinners. Sometimes we’ll abandon our commitments and abandon people because we’re tired of waiting on the Lord to make church life easier or more fulfilling.

Yet even if you find right now that you have a lot of problems waiting on the Lord, which I think we would all agree we do, first know that there’s great forgiveness in Jesus Christ who’s passed into the heavenly places. Lean on Jesus Christ, find forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Then learn, brothers and sisters, how to set your mind and heart again and again on waiting on the Lord and his promises. Do that by making use of the means of grace that are available to us; word, sacrament, prayer, and being hardened day by day as we encounter the promises of God.

If you don’t know Christ, well brothers and sisters that would be the first place to start, it will be turning to Christ now for salvation. If life seems chaotic and aimless and hopeless, know that the promises of God could be yours if you put your faith in Christ. You could be an heir according to the promise if you put your faith in Christ. For all of us are called to lean into the promises of God, to know those promises are truly guaranteed, to read the scriptures, to know what the promises of God are in the first place, and to know that the Lord can be trusted to every single one of his promises.

Even when it seems in our lives that nobody else is trustworthy to their promises and commitments, friends, the Lord is faithful. The Lord is faithful to all of his promises, to all of his commitments. He’s faithful to his covenant and so trust that and persevere with faith.

Let me pray.

Gracious heavenly Father, we pray again that often our relationship to the words of others is iffy at best. We tend to distrust people and as a result we tend to do a bad job of living in the community that you call us to live in. Yet Lord we pray that you would help us to trust in you more and more. We might know that we can’t trust other people the way that we like, we know that we can trust you. I pray that you would help us remind us of that, remind us that you are the one who is supremely and infallibly trustworthy. Will you remind us of that day by day, Lord, and help us to wait upon you even when we don’t know like Abraham how things are going to work out. Would it be enough for us that you are trustworthy and that you’ve kept your word in the past and know that you’re going to keep your word in the future. By your Holy Spirit would you bring those promises powerfully upon us so that we receive them as you would have us do. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.