God's Promises Kept

Posted on July 21, 2024

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God’s Promise Kept

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Psalm 89:20-37

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

A father made a promise to his son that for his 16^th birthday he would buy him a car. However, there was a condition to this. His son had to get a job, get his grades up, read his bible and go to church, and he had to cut his hair. The son agreed to these conditions So, 6 months go by and it is the son’s birthday. The father tells him that he has gotten a job, got his grades up to all A’s, and he had been going to church and read his bible. However, he did not cut his hair. The father told him that he could not buy him the car because he still had not cut his hair. The son said, “Dad, I have been reading my bible and I noticed that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, and Jesus had long hair. So, then I must conclude that it should be ok for me to have long hair too.” The father then said, “It’s true the bible does say that they had long hair, but it also says that they walked where ever they went.”

David had gotten to a point in his life in which he and his kingdom were at peace. His kingdom was established and he was free from any enemies. David realizes that he has all of these great blessings and he lives in this wonderful, rich home, and yet the Ark of the Lord continues to sit in a tent. Therefore, David has it in his mind that he is going to build a temple for the Lord, a permanent home fit for the God of the universe. Nathan tells him to go ahead for the Lord is obviously with David and his heart seemed to be in the right place. However, God has other plans in mind and tells Nathan this in a dream. God says that it will not be David to build the temple but his offspring will do so. Bottom line, God is the one who commanded and designed the Tent of Meeting and God will be the one who will decide and design his own temple. However, God made a promise to David. “The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish hi kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.” God kept that promise and David’s son Solomon built the temple of the Lord.

Fast forward a thousand years and we have another promise kept. God promised a messiah through the line of David. Mark reveals the desperation of the people for a messiah. Jesus had sent out the 12 on a mission to preach the good news and to heal the sick and drive out demons. They had returned to report everything they had done but they had all become so popular as you can imagine that people were not leaving them alone. Jesus calls his friends to come away on a boat to get some rest. However, as they do that the people recognize them and follow them on foot and actually beat them to the other side and are crowding together as they arrive. Jesus takes compassion on them and many sick are brought before him and he heals them.

Prior to Jesus, God’s love and blessings were primarily focused on the people of Israel. God established the nation and this kingdom as his chosen people as the promise he had made to Abraham. But God also promised Abraham that he would bless the whole world through his offspring. God’s promise is first kept by making Abrahams seed a great nation. Then Jesus is the second part of that promise in which the whole world is blessed.

Paul reveals in our passage in Ephesians 2:11-22, that prior to Jesus, all of the gentiles were separated from the people of God for Israel was God’s chosen people and they had the law given to them through Moses and therefore had the blessing of the law that comes with it. However, God promised that he would bless the world through Israel and not just Israel alone. Now because of Christ, We the gentiles may now share in this blessing. One we were separated but now we are united through Christ. For once there was a barrier but now that barrier has been destroyed. Once there was a barrier between us and the Lord. However, through the blood of Christ that barrier has been removed. If you are in Christ whether Jew or Gentile you are now equals and have equal access to the Lord and the promise of His Kingdom.

Last weekend there was an attempted assassination on former president Donald Trump. After surviving this assassination attempt, he revealed that it is only by the grace of God that he is still alive. This event serves as a reminder of the importance of people knowing the Lord. Though the former president and current republican candidate was spare there were still some casualties. One man lost his life in a heroic effort to protect his family therefore taking the bullet himself in their place. That is exactly the example of what Jesus has done for us. The other casualty was the man who had done the shooting. We still do not know everything behind his intentions or motive but we do see a result of what happens when Jesus is not present in someone’s life. The result was that he tried to take life and therefore lost his own. But what a difference it may have been if he had Jesus in his life. Our lives are finite and they will come to an end at one time or another. But there is a promise from the Lord that is found in his son Jesus Christ. That promise gives us life even though we may die. This is a promise that is kept.

I wonder though if there was anyone who had shared the gospel with that young man at any time in his life? What a difference it may have made if he knew how God keeps his promises? We have so many stories like this in our world today though in which some make these horrific decisions to take a life. It is our duty as followers of Christ to point back to Christ as the answer to all of these problems. It is our duty to share with the world that God keeps his promises so that unnecessary deaths like what happened last weekend, do not happen again. We have charge to keep and share the promises of God. We as followers must stand on those promises for the world.