Believing in God’s Promises Keith M. McFarren April 28, 2024 John 14:1-14 Jesus was full of bad news. He told his disciples that Satan was at work against all of them. Five different times he told his disciples that he was going to have to leave them. He told them that one of the disciples would be a traitor. He told them that Peter would deny knowing him 3 different times and that they would all abandon him and act as though they never knew him. And because of all of this, he would be arrested and crucified. It wouldn’t be long before life for the disciples was going to fall apart. Their world was going to be turned upside down and their lives would be filled with chaos. Yet, with all of this about to happen Jesus said, “Trust in God.” And at a time like this, what else could they do but “Trust in God?” What else did they have that could keep them bound together as a group? Sometimes, we have to believe what we cannot prove. Sometimes, we have to accept what we cannot understand. Sometimes, all we can do is trust in God. But then Jesus added something else to that statement. He said, “Trust in me.” Don’t trust in me because of the circumstances that surround you…trust in me despite the circumstances. Don’t trust me because you have to; trust me because you want to. Trust in me, have faith in me, because faith is what supports us, faith is what holds us up during the most difficult times of our lives. A number of years ago our neighbor had heart surgery and the doctor told her that one of the best things she could do to help in her recovery was to walk. She was willing to do that but she was afraid to walk on sidewalks because sidewalks are never even. They are raised up here and they slope down there because of tree roots and she was afraid of stubbing her toe or missing a step and falling. Our lives are a lot like that aren’t they? It seems like we can walk for a while and everything’s going great and then all of a sudden we stub our toe or we make a misstep and we fall. The bible is a list of unforgettable walks through life. Starting way back in the Book of Genesis we can see that the first walk was taken by God, who walked through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve because he wanted to be with them and form a relationship with them. ·There was the long walk that Abraham took with his son Isaac…to Mt. Moriah, where Isaac was to be sacrificed. ·There was the liberating walk that Moses and the Israelites took as they left Egypt and God parted the Red Sea and they all escaped the Egyptians. ·There was the long, frustrating walk the Israelites took as they wandered around the desert for forty years. ·There was Joshua’s strange but triumphant walk around the City of Jericho. ·There was the disciple’s mysterious, eye opening walk to Emmaus. (If You Want to Walk on Water, John Ortberg, 2001) There are all sorts of “walks” in the Bible. But I want you to notice that all of these walks, all of the people and all of these incidents had one thing in common. They all had one common denominator. All these people in all their various situations had one thing in common: they all trusted in God…and because of their faith and because of their trust in God, they all experienced the power and presence of God in their lives when they needed it the most. Job was a prosperous farmer living in the land of Uz. He had thousands of sheep, camels and other livestock, a large family and many, many servants. One day Satan came to God and said “Listen, the only reason Job trusts you and worships you is because he is wealthy and everything seems to fall into place for him.” God said, “No it’s not.” Satan said, “Yes, it is.” God said “No it’s not.” Satan said “Yes, it is.” And on and on and on and so to prove his point, God allowed Satan to test Job’s faith. Satan was allowed to destroy Job’s children, his home, his livestock, and his servants…but Job continued to trust in God. Next, Satan attacked Job physically, covering him with painful sores. Job’s wife told him to curse God and die (2:9), but Job suffered in silence all the while trusting in God even though he didn’t understand all this was happening to him. Three of his best friends came to visit him and they said God was punishing him because he had sinned. “Confess your sins” they said and turn back to God. But even then, Job maintained his righteousness and continued his trust in God, yet he continued to wonder what he had done to have his entire world turned upside down. Finally, in the 38th chapter, God talked to Job one on one. But God didn’t come right out and tell Job why everything happened like it did. Instead, God asked Job a number of questions that no human being could possibly answer. ·Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? ·Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and made the sun rise in the east? ·Where does the light come from and where does the darkness go? ·Are you the one that gave the horse its strength? ·Can you catch a crocodile and make it beg for mercy? Can you tame it and give it to your children to play with as a pet? Job didn’t know what to say. He just sat there. God used Job’s ignorance of the world’s natural order to show his ignorance of God’s moral order. If he couldn’t understand the makeup of God’s physical world, what made him think he could understand God’s infinite mind and character? God alone knew the purpose behind Job’s suffering and yet he never came right out and explained why things happened like they did. And, despite everything that happened; no matter how bad he hurt both physically or emotionally, Job continued to place all his trust in God. Job should serve a model for all of us in how to trust in God. He should be a hero to all of us. Job shows us the kind of trust we are supposed to have. When everything else in our lives is stripped away and we have no where to turn – that is the time that we need to recognize that God gives himself to us, and God is all we ever really need. I’m not much of a movie watcher, not because I don’t like movies but because I very seldom see the end of it. I have problem staying awake. I like to fall asleep. But the Indiana Jones movies with Harrison Ford always keeps me awake. They always have a lot of action and there is still some humor injected throughout the movie. In his book, Walking on Water, John Ortberg describes the climax of the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” in which Indiana Jones has to pass three crucial tests to reach the Holy Grail that he has been searching for and at the same time save his father, who is dying. The first test is “The Breath of God.” As he walks down a hallway he has to duck at just the right time or he’ll have his head cut off by a number of big revolving metal blades that come at him. The second test is called “The Word of God.” He has to walk on just the right stones – the ones that spell out God’s name in Latin – or he’ll fall through the floor to his death. The third test “The Path of God” is, of course, the most difficult. Indiana comes to the edge of a cliff that’s about 100 feet across to the other side and so far down you can’t see the bottom. Of course, on the other side of this abyss is the doorway to the Holy Grail. The instructions on how he is to get to the other side say this: “Only in the leap from the lion’s head, will he prove his worth.” Indiana says to himself, “It’s impossible. Nobody can jump this100 foot abyss.” But then he realizes that this is a test of faith. While at the same time, his father keeps telling him, “You must believe boy. You must believe!” Even though every nerve and fiber of his body tells him not to do it, Indiana walks to the edge of the cliff...lifts his foot....and steps out into the air…but he doesn’t fall. Step by step he ends up walking across the abyss while being held up by an invisible force…all while his father’s word remind him, “You must believe! You must believe!” The writer of Hebrews says “it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God…” (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus, this guy that they have depended on for the last three years says that he’s going away but he also says “Don’t get upset because everything is going to work out ok. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.” Don’t get upset, Jesus says, everything will work out ok. That’s sometimes easier said than done. It’s pretty hard for us to think that everything will work out sometimes, isn’t it? Especially when we have health problems, or money problems, or family problems. It’s hard when we have problems at work or when we have relationship problems. It’s pretty hard to do sometimes when we wonder if God has left us high and dry; when we wonder if God really hears our prayers; when we wonder if he’s even still around to even pay any attention to us. Elijah had been a successful prophet but the threats on his life from Jezebel were too much for him to handle. For the first time ever, he felt God had left him and he was all by himself. So Elijah ran and hid in a cave on Mt. Sinai. As he hid in this dark cave listening for any little noise, thinking it was the army coming to get him, the Lord spoke to him and said “What are you doing here, Elijah? (1Kings 19:9b).Did you hear what God said? “What are you doing here?” For all that was going on in Elijah’s life, for as many miles as he had run out of fear, for all the trouble he went to find a cave that was out of sight and off the beaten path – guess who was still with him? God. God was still with him…here…in this place. God was right there beside him as he was running for his life. God said he’d always be with us and time after time he lives up to his promise. No matter how topsy turvey our lives get; no matter how lonely we get; no matter how far down in the dumps we get; no matter how close to death we are…we are not alone. God has made a promise that he will never leave us. A promise we can trust. A promise we can believe in. So, if everything God has ever told us has been the truth shouldn’t we also trust in his son Jesus and shouldn’t we also believe in him when he tells us “I am going to prepare a place for you and when everything is ready I will come and get you” (John 14:2-3a). God, through Jesus, uses Jesus’ words this morning to show us that our way to eternal life is secure – it’s just as secure as our trust in him. He has already prepared the way to eternal life for us but the only issue that still may remain unsettled is our willingness to believe and trust in him. We have to trust in him and we have to believe in him if we want to be with him – we have to believe in him and trust in him if we want to spend eternity with him. The beginning point of our faith is believing in God’s character. The end point is believing in God’s promises. In between, if we believe that in Jesus we see the picture of God, then, in the face of all the amazing love that God has shared with us in Jesus, we can trust in Jesus to do what he says. When we believe that God will fulfill his promises even though we don’t see those promises materializing right in front of us, it is then that we can say “I believe; I trust in you. It is then we are demonstrating our true faith and our trust in God, and in his son Jesus, our Lord, and our Savior. |