Let’s all stand if you would and turn to Hebrews chapter six tonight as we continue on verses 13 to 18.
And we’re looking at a message titled the one and only Promise Keeper.
Do you remember when there was the promise Keepers? Many years ago? Promise Keepers? I’d never been to one.
A lot of people did. Uh That’s great.
Um But it wasn’t, you know, that was the whole thing is as men were to be promise keepers.
But every man knew down deep inside that you can be so well intended about keeping a promise and you could actually fail it, keeping that promise because you don’t have the ability to fulfill it even though you have the greatest intentions.
Does that make sense? I can say I’m going to pick you up at eight o’clock but get a flat tire.
I promised you. But something outside of my control happened. Are you with me?
So when we say promise keepers, we all know that there’s only one promise keeper and we’re gonna be looking a lot tonight at this promise keeping God of ours.
Hebrews chapter six beginning into verse 13.
If you pick it up in the even numbered verses for when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater.
He that is God swore by himself.
And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Yeah, thus God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath.
Have some observation.
And all guts people said, amen, you may be seated.
Isn’t that awesome? The depth of the Bible just reading that, I mean, technically, right, seriously, we could read that and determine to meditate on it all night long.
And we could actually leave here right now and God would minister to us this powerful truth.
There’s some deep theology here and we’re gonna be learning this tonight.
So church, the first thing that we do by jumping in regarding the one and only promise Keeper is in verses 13 to 14, we learned this about him that he is bound to himself.
I want everybody to write that down either in your notes or in the margins of your Bible.
He’s bound to himself. This is something that the eternal awesome God of the Bible has revealed to us that he has communicated to us, that he allows himself in our understanding.
In other words, he, he wants to make super sure that you and I know that he allows himself, can I put it to you this way?
He allows himself to be captured by our pursuit of him.
He wants to be caught growing up little kids when you play tag with your little kids.
Of course, you can outrun them. That’s not the point. Of course you can out hide them.
Daddy, go hide, go hide and I’ll find you.
Of course you hide behind the curtain with your legs sticking out. Why?
Because you want them to find you because that’s part of the great experience and they’re so excited when they do find you, God does that with us.
How does he do that? He does that by communicating to us promises promises.
When I mention the word promises that could generate within you a lot of pain or some great comfort or some joy, it might even cause you to reminisce about how maybe you were promised this or that in life and lo and behold it happened and it’s just such a sweet moment in your memory or you were promised something in life.
What if, what if you, for example, stood at the altar and you promised and they promised back?
But it didn’t go so well. And just the word promise generates a pain, some angst in your heart.
It’s a very, very energized word.
You know, because the word promise by design takes hold of our heart and our emotions promise.
God keeps his promises because he is bound to himself.
And you can write that down almost as it were as a guarantee.
Imagine having a, um, I know the young people won’t understand what I’m about to say.
But imagine having a checkbook with unlimited funds, right? Ok.
God’s promises to us is his checkbook. It’s our checkbook.
We can write out God. You said this and we’ll get into a lot of verses tonight.
God, you said this in Psalm 1 38 and you so to speak, write a check.
You know what, maybe we ought to somebody out there who’s an entrepreneur, you ought to make that happen.
Just remember you heard it here first, a checkbook of promises as it were God.
You promised that if your word abides in me that when I pray, you will answer no, John 15 verse seven, God allows himself to be captured that way or in this case bound, he’s bound to himself.
He’s not bound to us. He’s bound to himself.
And so when it says in verse 13, it says for when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater.
I love this. He swore by himself. So what does that mean exactly what it says?
Instead of God shaking hands with Abraham, instead of God shaking hands with you or me.
God shakes hands with himself and says, I promise to do this for them.
I promise to come through for them. Now, God doesn’t have to make that known.
This is what’s beautiful. His legs sticking out, right?
He’s showing himself to us tonight, you can trust me.
I am bound to myself to come through. This is the God that I am.
And so when it says in verse 13, this is what we learned about that.
What God says, listen, it’s going to sound kind of funny when God says is what he will say.
So what kind of grammar is that?
I’m not exactly sure but it works and may not pass an English test, but it’s good theology.
What God says is what He will say. What does that mean? You can’t be a promise keeping God.
If you vacillate back and forth, you cannot be the God of your word without listen, without the perfect correlation of what he is.
And what he says is what He will always say. Our God never changes.
He’s the same. The Bible. Isn’t it amazing?
I just learned yesterday that the, the Watch Tower society, that’s the home base of the Jehovah Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York.
They changed their new world translation.
First of all, their first version of the new world translation of the Bible was something that was manipulated.
They don’t know this by the way.
Uh But the man Johann Greber is the man who translated their Bible and uh he was a Greek scholar, but he wasn’t a born again believer and he mistranslated a bunch of words and it became the new world translation of the Jehovah Witnesses when they come to your door.
They’ve got a different King James Bible than you do.
Well, listen, you could have taken the old King James Bible up against their old translation of the new world uh Bible that they had and you could still show them that Jesus is the Messiah.
But now they came out with a revised version of their version and they removed tons of scriptures that had been previously used against them because I guess Satan did it.
He, Satan didn’t get it right for them the first time. So they got to redo it.
So they washed Jesus and he had his deity out of many of those passages.
Listen, I say this not to slam you. I say this to challenge you.
If you’re in a system that changes, that should be a great warning because our God is bound to himself.
He’s going to keep his word because He is God. He’s immutable as we’ll learn. He cannot change.
Is there something that your God can’t do? Yes. There’s a lot of things that our God can’t do.
He can’t change. He can’t lie. He can’t tempt us. Isn’t that amazing?
He’s awesome.
But what God says is what he will say and you can trust him.
Jesus said thus and so 2000 years ago, and it’s in perfect alignment with a 3000 year old passage from King David or from Moses in Genesis.
He’s consistent. The word promise here is what you might expect it to mean it means to proclaim or to make a pledge with your words uh to tie yourself to that statement.
Now, when God makes a promise, all He expects from us is to believe Him in that promise, to believe Him.
I don’t listen, I, I don’t, I, I don’t mean to run over any good intentions, but I don’t, I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where God says Jack.
Now you promised me this. I’ve searched the Bible. I can’t find anywhere.
He says, Jack make me this promise. Do you wanna know why he doesn’t ask me that?
Because He knows I can’t keep it no matter how much I want him.
Think about that for me, it translates into my life as incredible security.
I mean, this kind of talk just causes me to feel hugged by God.
When God makes a promise, he is making it in such a way that he’s tying himself to what he’s saying.
He binds himself to what he has spoken.
And then the word swear where it says in verse 13, it says because he could swear by no one greater.
He swore by himself. Oh, that’s beautiful to swear is to make an oath to swear by God’s means is to promise in this oath that I will fulfill this.
When Jesus said to us in the New Testament, I’m not gonna drink of this cup.
We’ll have communion next week, right?
We’ll have the cup Jesus said, I’m not gonna drink of this cup until you’re with me in the kingdom.
That’s a promise he has made to us.
He’s not sneaking a little, he’s waiting for you and I to be there with him and he’ll keep that promise.
But it’s awesome to me that he made a promise to Abraham.
All Abraham was committed or expected to do was to just take God at his word.
Listen, what does God expect of you tonight is to take Him at his word.
So Jack, you gotta make it more complicated than that. Please. Sorry, believe me.
When you embark upon taking God at his word. It’s a weird thing because you know God is true.
He has said what he has said and he’s never gone back on anything that he’s ever done and to prove it, you can study Bible prophecy.
He keeps his promises. Then why is it that you and I struggle to rest when he, who is such a one has made a promise.
Sometimes our faith is challenged this way.
Church when I wonder the, the depth of our faith, when we say, oh, I thank God, I’m gonna go to heaven someday and Jesus is coming back or when I, when I get ready to pass away, he’s going to take me into his presence.
And we say that and I think sometimes there’s a little bit of affordability, is that the right word?
Uh There’s a little bit of leeway when we say it because that truth may or may not be very imminent.
Are you hearing me? Oh, I know that when I die, I’m gonna go see Jesus.
Good, good for you. That’s awesome. Hallelujah. Yes.
And then your next breath is, I don’t know how we’re gonna make the house payment next month.
Did you hear what I’m saying?
None of us want to hear this.
But if I’m talking about Him, taking care of my soul forever in heaven and I’m biting my fingernails right now because I don’t know how my grades are gonna turn out or, or you know, how is this thing gonna come out?
Something’s wrong. I’m not saying that you’re not a believer.
I’m saying that you need to perfect your faith this way in Him.
Our faith is somewhat clouded and goofed up when we say that we believe God.
But then we were ourselves sick.
We get done praying and then we got to get up and take toms or what do you?
Oh, you just got done. Is your stomach sick? Do you have a problem?
No, I just got done praying about, about uh my life.
Uh And, and now I need Melantha for my stomach. That’s no, no, no.
Listen, he’s the promise keeper. I think, listen for me, for you, for us.
I’m gonna throw all of us under the bus together is that you and I suffer so much unnecessarily because we do not just stand on his promise.
He said it, he’s promised it right.
I’m watching, um, one of our staff members who has been with us from the beginning and battling cancer and, uh, I hope she’s not watching right now.
She’s in the hospital. Um, but I’ve watched the, the true evolution of when she was healthy and herself, so to speak.
She was exactly who you wanted to be as the accountant for this church.
Nobody could sway her. She wouldn’t budge.
In fact, when you saw her coming, it’s like, oh boy, here she comes.
Somebody must have put a decimal point in the wrong spot. Somebody didn’t fill that thing out. Right.
And listen, that’s exactly the kind of person you want in that position. You want that.
In fact, you want to protect them because that’s how, that’s how things stay clean. It’s awesome.
But you know what? Now, now there’s a different chapter in her life.
She’s still the same person, but she’s the same person with all of the pain and the suffering she’s gone through.
She’s so much more like Jesus today than she was 10 years ago.
Now, what I just said should be said about each and every one of us.
That’s right. Am I more like Jesus now than I was 10 years ago?
Because I have learned, right? We want to be able to report that we have learned what God says is what he will say he can be leaned into, he can be stood upon, he can be trusted in because he’s bound to himself to perform what he has spoken in the Bible.
That’s why when you read the Bible, you’re not reading, you know, the Reader’s Digest or the Wall Street Journal, you’re not reading uh some cookbook, you’re reading God’s will that he has made manifested on printed page.
The Bible is the will of God. Psalm 1 38 verse two.
Psalm 1 38 verse two, I will worship toward your holy temple.
David calls out and praise your name for your loving kindness and your truth.
And here is the because of it all for you have magnified your word above all your name.
I want you to think about that statement for a moment.
God says there’s only one thing greater than my name. Now stop right there at the name of Jesus Christ.
Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, right? That He is Lord to the glory of God, the father.
That’s a big deal. God says my word is above my name that is incredibly powerful.
Now, I don’t know if they do this anymore.
Are there Christian uh bookstores anywhere anymore in the world? I don’t know if they, I don’t know.
I, you know everything’s done online these days.
But back in the old days, there used to be this loaf of bread at a, at a Christian bookstore and you opened it up and there were Bible memorization, uh cards inside little flash cards, right?
And it was your daily bread. You pull it out and it’s a great, it’s a great verse like that.
Well, God says that he’s committed to his word. I’m bound to my word.
Thank God. I don’t know what to do. God. What, what about this?
I, I have to make a decision. God would say this. Check out my word.
I, I listen, I’ve given you the answer.
We also know this and we’re comforted by this.
Always as Matthew 11 28 Jesus says, and imagine the tenderness of this come to me.
All you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle.
This is God speaking and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. We need that right now more than ever.
Is it hot in here?
Well, even when it’s hot, I can take my soul and have it rest in Him.
This is Jesus saying is life wearing you down? Yes.
Is there a tat coming from every angle? Yeah.
Then I’ll tell you what, let me carry you.
In fact, how about you take my yoke?
That’s a very sweet picture that he’s painting to those who are of that era, but it won’t be hard for us to grasp this.
When you yoke up the animals to pull whatever the load is, you’ve got your primary, maybe it’s a very, very healthy, strong ox or donkey or whatever.
And to take his yoke is to take a yoke that is custom made.
Each animal has a custom made yolk.
But when one’s pulling more of the load, there’s a different kind of yolk that goes around the other one’s neck.
You know what I mean by yolk? Not of the egg, but of wood.
It goes around the neck and it straps you to the load and as you walk along you pull it.
But in jesus’ day, a carpenter would be tasked with the job of sizing up someone’s a to the other a determining, well, this is your primary.
So I’m gonna make a yoke to compensate for the little guy.
And Jesus is saying like this, so to speak. Right.
Let here, let’s go together. You and I are here and put on my yoke.
I’ve got one that I just made for you. It just perfect. Let’s go.
And as he’s pulling life for us, our feet are, our feet aren’t even on the ground.
We’re just going along and we’re like that little kid thinking that they’re helping us mow the lawn when it’s, you know, it’s like, really, that’s why pride and arrogance is so, so repulsive.
The closer you get to Jesus, you see arrogance and pride in it So, I mean, look what, what with the, with the vitality that were to put worship upon God pride and arrogance takes that vitality and puts it on yourself in aggrandizement of.
Look at me, look at I’ve like, look at the great Babylon I’ve made and God heard that in heaven.
What? No. Mm mm I’m gonna fix that. And God humbled him. Wow.
We also learned this about God and his promise, keeping powers and being bound to Himself is the fact that in verse 14, what God does is what he will do.
Consistency verse 14 saying surely blessing. I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you.
He said that to Abraham. Listen, you know, it’s awesome.
If you are a skeptic in the house right now or if you’re an atheist, you don’t believe the Bible entertain this for a second.
The man Abraham really lived and that the world is populated with his DNA literally.
And God said thousands of years ago, I’m going to multiply your descendants upon the face of the earth and God did it.
And what’s cool about that?
If you want to take that seriously, you can go research that and find out that it’s a fact.
Look at Abraham and his descendants and you’re going to look in the mirror and find out that it’s you.
The question is, do you believe like Abraham believed you can be a physical descendant of Abraham?
Listen of the Arab world, the Hebrew world, they’re all descendants from Abraham.
But in each camp, you’ve got to come to believing that the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is the God that manifested himself in Mount Sinai is the God who manifested himself on the cross.
It’s remarkable what God does is what he will do.
You can trust him, by the way.
He said in Genesis chapter 12, you know this, well, in verse one, he said, now the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country, which is totally pagan.
By the way, if there’s a movie out right now about this very verse, you should go see it.
It’s called, I think it’s called his only son from your family and from your father’s house, which is a pagan.
It’s all pagan. It’s all gentile too. I love, I love that.
The first Jew was a gentile before he was a Jew.
In fact, there were no Jews until this gentile showed up and then God made him a Jew.
Isn’t that fun? See, I was born a Jew.
Well, Abraham was born a gentile.
He’s the, he is the Jew of the Jews when it comes to the Old Testament, but he was a gentile first.
I just like rubbing that in.
Um I might say it a few more times too before the night is over.
Why aren’t you glad that?
Well, if only only Baptist make it to heaven, I’m glad that’s not true.
Well, everybody knows Calvary Chapel. No, I don’t think so. That might be a hindrance.
Well, no, you gotta be a Catholic to go to heaven.
No, whatever you pick and whatever you conjure up will not be the answer.
Heaven is gonna be awesome by faith alone in the promises of God.
I’m saying the gospel differently right now by faith alone in the promises of God.
What is that promise he made? Look unto Jesus and be saved.
Look at the cross. When Jesus was brought up on that cross and crucified there, he was likened unto the staff being raised by Moses and Aaron.
Do you remember that a brazen serpent on a staff?
And anyone, anyone that says, who would look to see the serpent, bronze serpent on a staff in the Old Testament?
When the plague was sweeping across the valley floor and killing the Hebrews, the answer was given look to the serpent on the cross.
It’s awesome or on the pole. Satan was being judged. It was an image of bronze.
Bronze in Hebrew mind is judgment, bronze. That’s why there’s a bronze labor or a bronze basin.
Bronze, bronze in Hebrew. Mind is the place of judgment when the plague was sweeping across the Children of Israel for having disobeyed.
God. God told Moses and Aaron get a brazen metal serpent. So mold it.
I’ve obviously heated it up, pour it out, put it on a stick and raise it up and anyone who will look at it will be saved.
It’s a picture of the cross. Jesus. The bible tells us, went to the cross.
He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God through Him by faith.
The great exchange. It’s absolutely awesome.
And so God says to Abraham, I will bless those who bless you but read the fine print.
I’ll curse those who curse you.
I just read and I’m sorry, I can’t remember who it was.
It was either Charles Spurgeon or it could have been Winston Churchill. It was some Englishman.
He said, you can always tell by looking at a nation what God or gods they worship.
Now, when I read that, I thought for the first time in my life, reading that statement made me think that’s not good news.
I used to be good news here in America made me kind of a little nervous there because what God is it that presides over America or what Gods are there today that preside over America?
It seems like the, there’s a God of some bizarre, strange sexual messaging ari of some sort, strange the conversations constantly.
You can’t even do math anymore without somebody interrupting you about something about some sexually charged topic.
Isn’t it weird? It’s like sex is the new God of America. Sexuality.
I should say not sex seems like sexuality. It’s very odd.
It would be great if we were that focused on agriculture. You imagine.
How about development of desalinization plants for endless water supplies? Let’s go crazy over that.
How about if we just go crazy if we’re doing the right thing?
What about, what about if we just went crazy?
So who can be the nicest, can you imagine attention? All gang members in South Central?
This is, this is the head gang member guys.
We’ve gotten together and we have a new rule who can be the nicest starts at midnight.
Why not? Because it’s a spiritual issue, friends. It’s a matter of the heart.
Second thing is this verses 15 to 16 is that God has set the times for himself times, plural times, times as in the minutes, the seconds, the seasons and the years.
And so after he, as Abraham here it is, had patiently endured. He obtained the promise for men.
Indeed swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all disputes.
Meaning this, if in this world, you and I come to an agreement and you’re able to perform what is promised or I’m able to perform what’s promised.
This is business, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, this is business. I think it’s business.
It’s the way it’s supposed to be. Do some of us remember?
At least I remember my dad bringing us up, right. Shake, shake on it.
Do, do we do that anymore? Do we teach our kids that anymore? Shake on it.
We men as boys. My brother and I, we were taught.
If you shook up my dad, he, listen, I had no Christian upbringing but my dad would say, did you shake on it?
Yes. Then you suffer the consequences because you, if it doesn’t matter what that guy decided to do, did you shake on it?
I did, then you eat it. You never break the shake. No, I’m serious.
And listen, that’s how the nation was born on a handshake.
Word to word enough care and enough respect for one another that what we just agreed upon, we shook and if it goes sour, I’m not gonna sue you.
That was my oversight. Or I should have done more research myself. Are you hearing me, man?
That’s character, that’s integrity. It’s bad for law practices, but it’s great for the culture.
Remarkable. And we learned this when God goes to work, he works a work that’s for sure.
You know how we um uh we as humans. Uh I don’t know what this word means.
So forgive me, if it’s a bad word, I think it’s Yiddish, but to just puts around.
Doesn’t that just mean to like waste time? Are you just, what are you doing?
I’m just putzing around now. I don’t know. I may be saying a bad word in Yiddish.
I ask our Yiddish audience to forgive me.
But uh I would say, well, I’m just goofing around or killing time God doesn’t do that in, in any way, shape or form.
He doesn’t do that when he works at work.
He works, he does it in verse 15, it says, and so after he, that’s Abraham had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Why? Because listen, please take courage in this every bit along the way. Watch God made him a promise.
And God went to work. God made you a promise.
And if you believe Him, he’s gone to work in your life and he won’t stop when he goes to work, he works it out.
He doesn’t, he doesn’t stop.
Now, these words here are interestingly the same, very close, patiently and obtained uh as well as patiently and endured.
It goes this way, we can read it together patiently.
Excuse me, endured to persevere through a storm to face the the opposition.
Imagine this for a minute or elements.
So just think for a moment, um the native Indians would know which way the great storms would be coming by the direction that the American bison would set up as the storm clouds began to form on the horizon.
Did you know this? That the Great Bison of North America would face the storm?
And if it was going to be a real bad storm, they knelt down and they just went into like they just hunkered down and they put their foreheads straight into the direction that the storm would come.
And the Indians knew how to prepare for the oncoming storm and the sooner the bison set up to do it, the bigger the storm was going to be.
Think about that.
God tells you this in this life, you’re gonna have problems and challenges and, and God says you’re gonna endure it because you’re with me and you’re on your way to heaven and I’m gonna get you there, but there’s gonna be storms and here’s the deal.
Face. it just get right into it. Young people today, listen to me. It’s gonna get rough.
Don’t cry. Face it, God’s with you. He’s promised.
Hang on if the wind is blowing and the, the, the everything’s going on, just hang on.
He says, face it. He’s with you.
You’re not alone as in giving the outcome to God.
Give it to Him to surrender time to I love this.
Listen, yield up or to let go of the clock. What? To give it to Him?
Giving God the time, not give, not giving God the time like, ok, ok, God, I’ll give you five minutes this morning.
That’s what I’m talking about. All of it. No more concern.
Listen, it’s no more our concern to watch the clock.
It’s our concern to use every moment for His glory. Why? Because He gave us such great promises. Why?
Because He’s working to work in your life. Please believe this.
This is God’s word. He wants to absolutely get you to face the opposition head on.
Because he’s working to work. Is somebody coming against you?
Does everything seem like the heavens are lined up against you?
Face it, look in its direction and say, God, I just learned Wednesday nights from Hebrews six that like a big bison did.
I’m looking into this storm of emotion, this storm of finance, this storm of emotional, whatever it might be.
God, this health challenge, I’m taking it head on because you told me to stand here because you’ve got a plan and you are the one that’s controlling the time.
Listen, as soon as it gets rough for you and I we start, we, this is what we ask.
When is this going to be over? I understand that. Isn’t it so strange?
You can be sick during the day and we’ll live through it.
But notice at night when you’re sick, it seems like it lasts forever, right?
Things that challenge us seem to drag on forever.
And yet God says to us, I want you to hang in there.
I’m doing something but God but God but God and I told you before, don’t repeat this to anybody.
But my, my brother and I were so mean to my mom growing up and she was so tiny.
Remember this? Some of you know this, that when she would attack us, she would come after us, we didn’t clean our room or we got the floor dirty and she would, she was awesome.
She’s in heaven. Now this all got saved out of her.
But my mom, we would get the floor dirty. We’re not allowed to get our house dirty.
And when she saw something that you could hear, what did you boys?
You and she’s talking in pigeon English, which is hilarious to begin with.
And then you hear the kitchen drawer open up and you hear her grab a knife.
Oh, no, this is true. It’s fantastic.
I grew up never a dull moment and she would come after us and 90% of it she meant it, but there’s that 10% where it was just, you know, she’s not gonna kill her kids.
Um But we had no screen doors on our window. We had no screens on our window.
So my brother and I, we you could actually bounce on my bed and go right out into the backyard.
So, but we would, we would, she’d come at us and we would hold her forehead like this and she’s swinging at us.
She could have cut us all up, but she loved us too much.
She was just trying to get her point across, stay out of the house and never come back.
That’s what the point was. Oh, but she’s in heaven today though.
God got her there and that’s an awesome thing.
But you guys uh you, you, you face you, you face the opposition, the Lord is gonna be with you.
He’ll sustain you. Listen to this.
Scripture is to back up this fact that God is in control of time.
Isaiah chapter nine verse six, you may consider this a Christmas verse which it is.
But listen to this for us, a child is born unto us. A son is given.
That’s enough truth right there to blow your mind.
Kids are born all the time, but this, this kid that was born was the son of God given and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God.
So far everything’s tracking fine. Everlasting father. I thought Jesus was the son. He is the son.
He’s not the father. But why did you say that? That’s what it says in English.
It means this, that he’s the one that is in perpetuity. It’s an old word.
It means that when it says everlasting father, it means that he is forever in perpetuity, the ancestor or the governor of the ages.
It means that Jesus Christ is the governor of time when it says everlasting father, it simply means that he’s the authority over time.
Jesus, he’s the prince of peace.
And John 8 58 to back that up being the governor of time, he’s eternal in the incarnation is when he took on skin.
And in John 8 58 Jesus said to the Pharisees most assuredly I say to you before Abraham was I am you guys all have that the Jesus of the Bible is the eternal God who told the Pharisees before Abraham ever existed.
I was before him because they hung their head on Abraham.
You know, Jesus, we even rubbed it in.
He said to them, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and they counted back and they said, how is that possible?
You’re not even 50 years old. Isn’t that a funny thing? 50?
You’re not even 50 Abraham had been gone for 1000 plus years and you’re not even 50.
That’s because they believed in their way of thinking that if you are a rabbi, when you come into the age of 50 you know everything, you’re only 50 he was telling them you’re right.
I’m not, I’m not 50 I’m eternal.
And that’s when their robes blew off, their hats went, steam came out of their ears.
But here’s a good one.
You already thought about this verse when I said that it’s God who goes to work and he works to work is Philippians chapter one verse six.
I know you thought about it and it’s awesome because it, it says this on the surface.
It says this being confident of this very thing. You see the word bean.
It actually in the Greek, it’s B B B B E B confident.
Are you listening? Be in a constant state? Christian, you’re not allowed to not be confident.
You are to be in a constant state of confidence of this very thing.
What thing is that, that He who has begun a good work in?
You will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Yeah, you need to clap with that.
You need to thank God for that Christian. Listen tonight, no excuses. You are.
I am to be, be in, in a constant, perpetual state of confidence in God. Why?
Because he’s going to finish the work that he started. Here’s what you don’t want to do.
You don’t want to delay the work because you can, you can choose not to cooperate with God and he, and it drags out the process.
Why would you do that to you? Why would you do that to you?
You want God to finish what He wants and you wanna be because it’s good for you.
It’s great for you when your will and my will gets in the way.
It slows down what God’s whole process is. There’s nothing worse. Listen. Did you ever have to do this?
I came close where you almost don’t make it out of class and they tell you if you don’t, you know, you got one month to get your grades up and if you don’t, you’re gonna repeat this class and it’s like, think about it.
It’s when you are, listen, when you’re in the sixth grade, that’s like first of all, do they even do that anymore?
That’s how, that’s how they got us motivated.
You wanna do seventh grade over again because you got four weeks to fix that into slave.
You mean, you mean my buddies?
They’re gonna go that way and I’m gonna go that way and, you know, it’s pure pride in the fear of your father that causes your grades to go up in four weeks.
Why hinder it, let him have his work with you, what he wants to do, what he wants to accomplish the depth that he wants to do the things that He wants to peel back, you know, the stuff you might be even hanging on to it.
And so I really like this.
This fits me really good and God says it smells, I want it off but I like it.
God says it’s gotta go and he goes to work on that first Thessalonians 5 23.
This is a precious passage. Now, this is, this is a prayer.
Now, may the God of peace himself sanctify you set you apart from this world completely and may your whole spirit, soul and body see the trichotomy there.
It’s called the trichotomy. Do you see that you are a spirit?
You are a soul and you’re a body now is probably a good time because we’re out of time.
But now is a good time to say something like psychologists can do a lot of great work and that’s a rough job.
As long as you’re called to it, there’s, they’re psychologists. I know some psychologists they’re awesome.
They love Jesus and they love that absolute committed to the word of God.
That’s their primary source, right? Why, why are they so good? Because they understand that you’re a trichotomy.
See, listen, psychologists who don’t know God, you are a uh dichotomy.
There’s only two of you, there’s your body and there’s your mind and listen with all due respect, a psychologist who’s not a believer in the Lord Jesus doesn’t understand the things of the spirit.
I mean, that’s like taking listen, that’s like taking a Ferrari to a, a Volkswagen mechanic.
The mechanic is gonna say, what is this thing?
Are you, are you hearing me? Psychology?
It comes from the Greek word.
So where we get psychology or psychology, it’s the study of the workings of the mind.
But your spirit, that’s something different.
Your body is obviously your body, you know, your body is going to be the slave of whichever one of those are in control.
You know, if your soul is in control, your body’s gonna have to do whatever your soul wants.
But when you become born again, your spirit is awakened to the things of God and the and here’s the deal we, we’ll, we have to end but we’ll end this way.
So the body, this is just if my body could talk by itself, it would say what, what do I do now?
What am I going to do with me?
And the soul says, I want, I want, I want a peppermint cake.
I know. Where did that come from?
My, my soul is thinking my mind and it’s pretty carnal.
It smells, it feels, it’s, it’s in the moment my mind and then my body responds to the drive of the mind.
What I’m thinking about is what my body’s gonna wind up doing. Are you with me?
And that’s how you live your life.
That’s how I lived my life until I was convicted by the Bible, by the word of God.
The Holy Spirit used the Bible and convicted me. See, what do you mean? Convicted?
Pricked my heart.
Uh You know what, maybe more graphically like this when you, you know that’s old King James to, to prick the heart.
That sounds like, oh, well, how about this?
The Holy Spirit just right about from here with open palm, slapped me across the face and spit and snot and everything went flying because I got saved by a message that was all about hell.
And it was like what?
And all of a sudden I woke up in an instant of time sitting in a church which was irrelevant.
Honestly, I could have been sitting on the moon. It’s irrelevant.
And the and the truth hit me and said you live for whatever you want to live for.
And now it’s time for you to start living for me.
And there was this light, this light came on inside and that was what Jesus said.
You were born again or born of the spirit.
Now, what happened was that, that spirit is my human spirit.
That’s the part of you and I, that must be born again.
Here’s what’s fun when the spirit awakens by the work of the Holy Spirit.
He says, hey, wake up and you start thinking thoughts.
Maybe some of you have been thinking thoughts for a while.
I, I might need to, maybe I should go check out a church. I don’t know.
The world seems to be going upside down. Maybe, I don’t know.
Or maybe you, maybe you’re here because you don’t feel good.
Maybe something’s wrong, maybe something concerned you, maybe you came here tonight and you don’t even know why you came here tonight and I would submit to you that God is working to work, that you’re not understanding because he’s the governor of time, not you.
And the stuff that’s been going on in your life has been pushing you around and he wanted you to hear tonight that he’s got a plan for your life and he’s, he’s, he takes you by the hand and both of you together face the oncoming onslaught, which is now not for your destruction anymore, but to make you more like Him.
And when your spirit comes alive, see the human spirit is born dead, the Bible says in sin.
And so when God speaks, he says, and intensifies the truth, you need my son, you need to look at the cross.
Take a long hard look at the cross.
That’s what he was doing there for you.
And when that happens, you start to wake up and realize I must have this God, I must know Him.
And that’s the work that he does. Let’s pray right now.
And maybe tonight, maybe tonight you’re saying that’s, that’s me. That’s, that’s me. That’s my life.
That’s what’s happening.
Let’s bow our heads and father, we come to you tonight.
We, we ask your father that the promises that you’ve made in the Bible are so in our humanity, outlandish.
They are so radical that you made a promise.
You said if a man or a woman dies believing in me yet they shall live, you made a promise.
And you said, if I’m crucified three days later, I’ll be resurrected from the dead.
You said that you said that you are the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father.
But through me, you’re the one who said that the kingdom of God is near.
You only believe well, heads are bowed and eyes are closed tonight in this place.
No one needs to be sneaking around. It’s, this is a personal moment.
And if you’re at home right now, same goes for you at home.
Or if you’re listening in and you’re driving down the freeway that at this moment if you sense that God has been speaking to you, he’s touching at least trying in a sense to get your heart to beat spiritually speaking.
He wants you to say, Lord, I want you to come into my life.
You’re the promise keeper and I need a promise from you. God.
I want to know that if I die today, I’d go to heaven.
I want to know if there’s a future for me. I want to know dear God in heaven.
If you really do love me, I want to know if I can start my life all over again with you this time.
If that’s you tonight, heads about eyes closed.
I’m just going to ask you by the lateness of the hour.
If you just raise your hand up high and I’ll just see your hand. God bless you.
Put it up real high for me. Please. My goodness, many hands. That’s awesome. God can see your.
How about that? God can see your hand.
So many hands you can put your hands down church together.
Those of you who raised your hands, pray this prayer, church family.
You want to join with them, repeat this prayer. It’s not a magic prayer.
But if you mean it, God will receive this from you. Dear Lord.
I invite you into my life.
I see that I’m the sinner and that you’re the savior.
Thank you for not writing me off, but for giving me the gospel that for God’s soul of the world that he gave you.
His only begotten son that if I would believe in you now, I would not perish but have everlasting life.
I invite you into my heart right now. In Jesus name.
I pray. Amen.