Season of Promise: The Preciseness and Persistence of Jesus
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Season of Promise: The Preciseness and Persistence of Jesus
Titus 1, Luke 19
March 24th, 2024
The ups and downs of our lives, the high and the lows, work in direct correlation to kept promises and broken promises.
Promises have influence in our lives because they are the hope that stands in the gap between a need and a satisfied need.
The trustworthiness of a promise rests in two places: the substance of the promise & the credibility of the promiser.
Substance: What does the promise, promise?
Credibility: Can the promiser make good on the promise?
Promises Engage Emotions
A kept promise builds up trust. A broken promise tears down confidence.
A kept promise grows courage. A broken promise brings discouragement.
A kept promise provides comfort. A broken promise increases anxiety.
A kept promise raises hope. A broken promise increases insecurity.
Life will always throw things at us that are out of our control and over our heads. Ultimately, the idea of control and self-sufficiency are fallacies. In order to live a whole, hopeful, peace-filled and productive life, one without being dominated by anxiousness and fear, we need someone in our life who we can trust no matter what.
2 Foundational Laws of Promises
Fulfilled promises fill people. A fulfilled promise lights up a dark place.
Broken promises break people. A broken promise compounds darkness.
Every other belief system apart from Christianity (and we all have a belief system even if we reject labels) is self-sourced and self-dependent, meaning self-limited. Christianity is God sourced and God dependent meaning, unlimited.
Titus 1:1-4 (Message) I, Paul, am God’s slave and Christ’s agent for promoting the faith among God’s chosen people, getting out the accurate word on God and how to respond rightly to it. My aim is to raise hopes by pointing the way to life without end. This is the life God promised long ago—and he doesn’t break promises! And then when the time was ripe, he went public with his truth. I’ve been entrusted to proclaim this Message by order of our Savior, God himself. Dear Titus, legitimate son in the faith: Receive everything God our Father and Jesus our Savior give you!
Hope Promise Filter
Does the promise fill the experience gap?
Can the Promiser deliver on that promise?
Palm Sunday shines a bright light on the precision and the persistence of God in fulfilling His promises.
To be precise is to be meticulous – paying attention to every small detail.
To be persistent is to be undeterred in spite of difficulty and opposition.
If you miss Jesus’ mission you will miss Jesus. Jesus didn’t come to make our life easier, He came so that we could have real and eternal life.
Luke 19:29-44 (NIV) 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.” 35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. 37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: 38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” 40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” 41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” translation…
“Jesus save us! Give us freedom! We are sick of these Romans!”
I can know God.
I can always know more about God.
I will never know all there is to know about God.
What I know now about God is enough to trust God for the situation I find myself in now.
Hebrews 10:23 (NIV) Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
We don’t have to understand God’s timing to trust God’s timing as perfect.
We don’t have to understand how God works to place our hope in His working.
God’s desire and His ability to deliver on all of His promises tower above all circumstances on the ground.
Why would God be so precise and persistent with your salvation and not be so with your life?
God is trustworthy.
His timing is perfect.
Nothing can stand in the way of His in carrying out His plan.
You can place all of your hope in Him.
Isaiah 26:3,4 (NIV) You (God) will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.