RECEIVING THE PROMISES OF GOD 

HEBREWS 10:32-39

          Here, encouraging these Christians who continued to face harsh persecutions and trials, Paul reminds them of the courage they had already displayed in enduring past opposition.  They had stood through public shame and persecution and had also stood in support of others who were having such experiences.  They had been vandalized and had their possessions taken and they had suffered this with joy because they had the assurance of possessing heavenly wealth.  Paul urges them by saying “in the face of these new trials and afflictions remember your steadfastness in former times.”  This he says is no time for them to throw away their confidence and then in verse 36 he makes a statement that I want to focus on in today’s message.  He says, “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”  I want to use as a title today “Receiving the Promises of God.”

          In this verse Paul gives us insight into two requirements for receiving the promises of God; obedience to the will of God and patience.  Now I am in no way suggesting that these are the only two requirements.  But I do believe that failure in any one of these two things may cause one to delay and maybe even forfeit the promises of God.

I SAMUEL 13:1-2a, 5-14

          Here we see a case where impatience caused Saul to forfeit the promise of God.  Because Samuel was running a little bit late, Saul took it upon himself to offer the sacrifice.  This was the responsibility of the priest and not the king, thus Saul acted outside of the will of God.  For this action, Samuel tells Saul in verses 13 and 14, “Thou has done foolishly: thou has not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.”

          What drove Saul’s impatience is really not that important but sometimes knowing what drives you is the first step to overcoming the situation.  In Saul’s case he was driven by fear.  He has only been the king for two years and the people have not always stood in support of him.  Here he is faced with confronting the Phillistines and again the people of Israel are acting a bit shaky.  He was grossly out numbered (read verse 5) and Saul had only three thousand men.  His men were poorly equipped and lacking in skill.  The Philistines were skilled horsemen, real warriors with chariots.  Saul had 3000 farmers, shepherds and goat herders.  And then to top it off, he did not even have the blessing of God, because Samuel was late.   I can imagine Saul saying to himself, “what else can go wrong?”  Saul  could not bear the shame of a defeat and for sure being defeated so soon in his reign as king would  be suicide to his political career.  These things drove Saul to being impatient.

          When we act impatiently we need to stop long enough to determine what is driving us.  I now that I am impatient because I want something that is not readily available to me, but why is it so important that I have it right now.  Do you want a new car because you are tired of people seeing you in that old raggedy car and talking about your car?  So do you go out and buy a car knowing that you can not afford to make a payment just because the salesman says you can buy a car.  Or because you want to be in a relationship, do you join yourself to some unsaved heathen because you are tired of waiting for a saved man.  Are your reasons for wanting that thing associated with God’s will for you or your will for you.  It is important to get down to the root cause of what is driving you to be impatient.  So often we apply a salve to the symptom without addressing the real cause which only allows the real cause to manifest itself anew in some other area of our lives or to creep up again in that same area.  If we understand the root cause we can apply the Word of God to help us stand strong and be patient.  But as in Saul’s case, so often we act impatiently causing ourselves to forfeit or delay the promises of God in our lives.  But Paul said, “through patience, after we have done the will of God we can then receive the promises of God.”

GENESIS 12:1-3

          I want to briefly walk you through the life of Abram, pointing out the necessity of being both in the will of God and displaying patience in or to receive the promise of God.  First look at God’s commands to Abram.  He told him to get out of his country, get away from his kinsmen and get out of his father’s house.  As a result of obedience God promises “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing: I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you: and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.”  At this point all Abram has to do is obey the will of God and be patient. 

          Now it is right hear when someone normally starts to think well what if I don know the will of God, or how will I know the will of God.  Generally when this question is asked we start talking about hearing God speak to us and the need to grow in relationship with him that you may know his voice.  I want to point out that Abram was an idol worshipping heathen and he heard God speaking to him. If a pagan who had no relationship with God can hear and trusted that it is God talking to him, why can’t we. 

GENESIS 12:4-5

          Here we have Abram’s response to the command of God.  At age 75 Abram left Haran just as God told him, but he did not leave his kinsmen.  He took Lot with him.  He did part of the will of God but not all of it.  That is so much like us.  We try to do the part that is less painful in hopes that God will be okay with us doing just that part and will let the other part slide.  I want you to know that partial obedience is still disobedience and may cause you to forfeit or delay the blessing of God.

GENESIS 12:10

          Now who told Abram to go anywhere?  He was already in the land where God told him to go.  But you say, “well there is a famine in the land.  He has to have food.”  Don’t you think that God knew there would be a famine when he sent Abram there?  Maybe God had a plan for Abram was to survive the famine and did certainly did not involve going to Egypt or Abram would have seen no need to lie.  Abram looked at the circumstances and got out of the will of God.  This of course got Abram in trouble and God had to step in and deliver him.  But just think about it in the natural when you are working on a project every time you get distracted and get off track it delays the finishing of the project.  You may get to pick up right where you left off, but sometimes you may have to backtrack a little.  But sometimes if you stay gone too long you end up never finishing the project.  Sometimes we delay or forfeit the promise of God in our lives by getting off track, getting out of God’s will.

GENESIS 13:1

          So Abram gets back on track.  He is headed back to where God told him to be, back to the will of God.  But still Abram is in the permissive will of God not the perfect will of God, because Lot is still with him.  Just because God allows you to live, he continues to meet your needs, and even to bless you in some areas, does not mean that he is okay with you making alterations to his expressed will and doing as you please.  God wants us smack dab in the middle of his perfect will and to be anywhere other than that is to risk delaying and or forfeiting the promise of God in your life. 

          However, let me tell you, God has a way of moving us to where he wants us to be.  He fixed it so that Abram and Lot had to separate in order to keep peace among them.  (Note:  Had Abram obeyed initially Lot probably would not have been in Sodom, …)

GENESIS 15:1-7

          Now God has Abram right where he wants him and he can begin to bring the promise to pass.  Abram has gone out from his country.  You see the promise was not be associated with the pagan gods of Ur and Haran.  Abram has moved away from his kinsmen.  The promise was not was not to be a blessing to his idol worshipping family.  It was not even to be spent or shared with the greedy family of Abram’s father.  God wanted to bless Abram, not his father’s people, his father’s country and not even his father and his closes relatives.  Abram is finally in the will of God.  Now all he needs is patience to receive the promise.

GENESIS 16:1-6, 16

          Impatience is here possibly as a result of looking at the circumstances.  Abram is 86 years old when Ishmael is born.  That is 11 years from when Abram first started this journey with God.  Now we would say 11 years, how long does God expect him to be patient and wait?  The answer is of course, as long as it takes.  And by the way, maybe it would not have taken that long had Abram got in the perfect will to start with and stayed there.  But for sure this act of impatience did not help anything.  In fact it brought on more trouble and made the situation more stressful than it had to be.  When we get impatient and try to help God out we generally make a mess that sometimes God cleans up for us and other times we just have to learn to live with it.  The Jew and the Arabs are still to this day fighting.

GENESIS 17:1-8, 15-19

          Abraham is 99 years old and Sarah is 89 and it is finally time for the promise to be fulfilled.  Now we always talk about Sarah laughing but note here that Abraham laughed before Sarah did.  Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”  God understands the difficulties, hurts, and frustrations we feel when we have to wait for extended periods of time, but still we must be patient and wait. 

GENESIS 20:1-2

          Why Abraham decided to go wandering off again we are not told.  But again he almost gets he and Sarah in a world of trouble.  What Abraham probably did not understand is that the closer we get to receiving the promises of God the more the enemy of God and man tries to distract us, get us off tract and out of the will of God.  Then if he is successful, he will go to God and accuse us of being unworthy of receiving the promise.  We know that Abraham and Sarah were close to receiving the promise because Genesis 21:1-8 tells us of Sarah giving birth to Isaac.

GENESIS 21:1-8

          Verse 5 here says that Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born.  He was 99 when God told him that Sarah would conceive.  Only one year had passed.  In that short time, after all that waiting, Abraham almost blew it.  It is important that we not stray away from the expressed will of God for our lives.  For one act of disobedience can be enough to cause us to delay or even forfeit the promise of God in our lives.

HEBREWS 10:35-36

         I don’t know what promises you are individually waiting on God to fulfill.  But I do know this, now is not the time to cast away your confidence and draw back from God.  For those who wait with patience, staying in the will of God will receive the promises of God.