Promise Keeper

PROMISE KEEPER

“Trade much in the promises. The promises are great supports to faith. Faith lives in a promise, as the fish lives in the water. The promises are both comforting and quickening. The promises of God keep us from sinking when we come to the waters of affliction. O! trade much in the promises; there is no condition you can be in, but you have a promise.”

~ Puritan Thomas Watson, 1662

• God never promised a problem-free life in which we would not ________ _____ ______________.

Genesis 15:1 (ESV) After these things...

Genesis 15:1 (ESV) After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

Genesis 15:2-5 (ESV) But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 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.”

Ephesians 3:20 (ESV) Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

• It is not a question of whether God will __________ a promise, but whether we will ______________ it.

Genesis 15:6 (ESV) And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:7-8 (ESV) And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

John 16:33 (ESV) I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In

the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Genesis 15:13-16 (ESV) Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Psalm 25:14 (MSG) God-friendship is for God-worshipers; They are the ones he confides in.

Genesis 15:8-11 (ESV) But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

Genesis 15:17-18 (ESV) When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

Isaiah 53:1-7 (MSG) Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?

2-6
The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,

a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him,

nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over,

a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away.

We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—

our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself,

that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him,

that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole.

Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.

We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,

on him, on him. 7-9

He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word.

Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own son, but offered him up freely for us, will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?

• If God sent Jesus for you and me, do you think there is anything else He wouldn’t do for you?

2 Corinthians 1:20 (MSG) Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident.