REcalibrate – 4. Promises From A Good Father

My goal in pastoring and preaching the way I do. To get you to explore and have a curiosity to discover and believe. I am not trying to get you somewhere to a better place. I am attempting to inspire, persuade and guide you to a place where your heart is eager to explore and discover who God is for you and who you are to God.

Promises are everything to God, and therefore should be everything to us.

Promises are given in order to increase and experience His Presence. Promises are relational. They enhance our fellowship with the Godhead. They create opportunities for partnership and intimacy. They accelerate our transformation.

Heb. 8.6 (NKJV) But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

Every problem has a promise from God attached to it. Every one.

Divorced.
Abused.
Broken.
Hurt.
Abandoned.
Broke.
Bad diagnosis.
Death in family.
Marital issues.
Kids wayward.

We tend to study and dissect the problem way more than we do to search out, study and better understand God’s promise to you.

– Every TRIAL comes with a promise of PATIENCE & GROWTH.
– Every LOSS comes with a promise of COMFORT & REDEMPTION.
– Every HURT comes with a promise of HEALING & FORGIVENESS.
– Every LACK comes with a promise of PROVISION.
– Every SETBACK comes with a promise of a COMEBACK.
– Every WORRY comes with a promise of PEACE.
– Every FEAR comes with a promise of REST.
– Every ADDICTION comes with a promise of FREEDOM.

Unfortunately, we won’t see many of His promises to us fulfilled without first learning about His nature and who He is for us.

WHO God is for us… is ALWAYS more important than any situation we find ourselves in.

The foundation of sonship is SECURITY of WHO HE IS and the LOVE that He has for us.

How do we go from Orphans to Heirs?

Become as a little child.

Mark 10.15 (NKJV) Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”

2Cor. 11.3 (NKJV) But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Every day as a little child my prime objective is to receive from my Father –
1. God’s view of us. – beloved son or daughter of God.
2. His purpose for us. – to dwell within us.
3. His thoughts toward us. – precious and numerous.

His promises take all the pressure out of our situations and enable us to come to a place of rest in God.

I want to look at a few key promises that are not conditioned based.

Our Father promised He would never leave us nor forsake us.

Heb. 13.5 (NKJV) Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

God will not abandon us. He is not going to leave us, fail to uphold us or let us sink!

“I will in no way let you go.” “I will not relax my hold on you.”

Forsake… means to abandon, desert, or leave in straits. It speaks of forsaking someone in a state of defeat or helplessness, even in midst of hostile circumstances.

WHO HOLDS THE ROPE?

Our Father promised He would remember our sin no more.

Heb. 8.12 (NKJV) For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

R emember (3415) (mnaomai from mimnesko = to recall to mind, to remind) means to be mindful of. God will not recall their sins to mind!

“God doesn’t say He’ll forget our sins–He says He’ll remember them no more! His promise not to remember them ever again is stronger than saying He’ll forget them.

No more (ou me) is a double negative, which could be paraphrased “Absolutely no, never will I remember”. Part of our difficulty with accepting the completeness of God’s forgiveness and His promise to remember our sins no more” is because we don’t really understand the meaning of remember. English dictionaries emphasize that remember means to bring to mind, to give attention to. When you remember something, you are retrieving that information from your stored knowledge (memory). To not remember is to not retrieve the stored data from your memory. Not remembering does not mean that the data has been lost or deleted. Nor does it mean that it is irretrievable… it is retrievable but not retrieved. That is the common use of remember.

Our Father promised He would discipline those He loves.

Heb. 12.5 (NKJV) And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

Regard lightly or despise means to regard something or someone as of little value, to look down on, to have contempt for, to make light of, to despise; to make little of, to consider of small worth.

Reproved/Rebuked means to bring to the light (to reveal hidden things) with the implication that there is adequate proof of wrongdoing.

Heb. 12.6 (NKJV) For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”
Heb. 12.7 (NKJV) If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

Endure (5278) (hupomeno from hupo = under + meno = abide) means to persevere, endure. To remain under not simply with resignation, but with vibrant hope. It means to continue in activity despite resistance and opposition and so to hold one’s ground, not be moved (as in Jas 1:12-note). Hupomeno was a military term used of an army’s holding a vital position at all costs. Every hardship and every suffering is to be endured in order to hold fast. It speaks of enduring patiently and triumphantly.

Heb. 12.8 (NKJV) But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
Heb. 12.9 (NKJV) Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
Heb. 12.10 (NKJV) For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
Heb. 12.11 (NKJV) Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.