Intro: New Year’s resolutions are promises that are more often broken than kept. We as human beings do not in ourselves have the power to keep our promises or covenants. But God as the ever true, just creator, always keeps His promises to others and us. So let us focus on the promise of God on another group of God’s people that we find in transition much like Calvary Baptist Church.
As an unknown source said you can’t break God’s promises by leaning on them. Let us firmly lean on God’s promises this year, this day, this hour.
I. God Gives the Promise of Promised Land
A) A physical Land
1) 1.3 “Every place on which the sole of you feet treads, I have given you, just as I spoke to Moses.
a) A land flowing with milk and honey
If we will only follow God He will provide our needs (milk) and our desires (honey)
The closer we come to the presence of God the more our desires become His.
b) God will Guide us to a place of blessing if we will follow.
c) Follow the leader
1) 1.2 The Hebrews took the land only because God gave it to them.
(Better than the promise of an earthly home and place to serve God is the promise of the eternal spiritual home.)
B) A spiritual Land
1) Look at Hebrews 11.8 – 16
2) Abraham looked for a heavenly country
3) God has prepared a city for them – Heb 11.16
4) Revelation 21.10
“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”
The holy city is our final destination and it Is God’s presence that Guides us there.
II. God Gives the Promise of His Presence to take the Land
A) God’s people often face Giants on the way to the Promised Land
1) God is a 1st rate Giant killer.
a) David and Goliath
b) Sin was no match for the Savior
c) Spiritual Principle don’t let the Giants of Life keep you from the land of blessing
Unbelief, Disappointment, Sin,
B) There is always a remnant of God’s people interested in slaying Giants.
Numbers 13 is the story of the spies that survey the Promised Land.
1) Majority report -- Land of milk and Honey (blessed for success)
a) Nevertheless – “But”
b) Someone else already lives there (They are giants)
Num 13.33 They saw Nephilim,
c) Fear overtook their faith (bad report discouragement)
But we know from Prov 1.7 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom
The spies were foolishly trusting in their strength to take the land not God and His promises
(Let us not fall in to the same trap of trusting in our strength alone)
2) Minority Report (God gives us Spirit and Trust like Caleb and
a) Calm of a courageous heart trusting in God
num 13.30 Caleb quieted the people (settled them down)
b) We can overcome the land. – (Greater is He that is within me than he than he that is within the world.
1) This New Year it we too need to realize there is nothing greater than our God.
c) Because of the others lack of faith the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
d) The children of Israel did not please God
Hebrews 11.6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
Satan is the Majority report He wants us to see the Giant of sin as to big and strong for us to reach the city of promise.
But Jesus is our minority report our Caleb He quiet’s us as the prince of peace and says I have overcome the world, the Giants of life cannot stop you if you will only follow me in faith.
God will bless us for success when we obey his lead.
III. God Gives the Promise of Success if we obey Him
A) Success is not unconditional
1) Be careful to do according to all the law
(But we are under grace aren’t we)
2) Jer 31.33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God and they will be my people.”
3) The law of God has to do with right relationship with God and man.
a) Honor God
b) Love you fellow man
B) Success Is Dependant on Your Dependence on God.
1) Joshua 1.8 book will not depart from you mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make you way prosperous; and then you will have success.
a) Speak God’s word
b) Know God’s word
c) Do God’s word.
2) That is a principle for success.
a) Speaking, knowing, and doing God’s word will also allow you to have courage in the face of impossible tasks
IV. God Gives the Promise of Courage in the Face of apparent impossible tasks.
A) Be strong and courageous
1) Not in ourselves
2) Back to the promise of God’s presence
3) We can be strong and courageous in the face of the Giants of life because God is on our side
4) He will lead us beside still waters; He will make his face to shine on us.
We live in an era of unkept promises. Nations sign important treaties and then break them at will. And many couples show little regard for their wedding vows. In this kind of society, we who are God’s people should be known for keeping our promises.
The brilliant Christian scholar and writer C. S. Lewis took that truth seriously. He was determined to pay what he had vowed. His biography tells of the suffering he endured because he kept a promise he had made to a buddy during World War I. This friend was worried about the care of his wife and small daughter if he should be killed in battle, so Lewis assured him that if that were to happen he would look after them. As the war dragged on, the man was killed. True to his word, Lewis took care of his friend’s family. Yet no matter how helpful he tried to be, the woman was ungrateful, rude, arrogant, and domineering. Through it all, Lewis kept forgiving her. He refused to let her actions become an excuse to renege on his promise.
God like CS Lewis will not renege on His promise. God’s promise to us of an earthly land and a heavenly city.
Let us not become like our nation, a people that make resolutions and easily break them for convieance sake. Let us stand firm on the promises of God, doing all according to His word looking for that heavenly city.
