252 ~ PROMISE DELIVERED

Hello, a big welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a church based out of Chennai, India.

We are thrilled that you tuned in today and hope that you will

be refreshed, revived, and energized by what you hear.

Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of

purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.

The year 2025 is 1 where we will be positioned by God to possess

our promise. Today's sermon encourages us to

believe that every promise God has given us is yes and Amen in

Christ. If God said it, he will do it.

We pray that you will position yourself intentionally to

receive the fulfillment of God's promises over your life.

We continue our series on Abraham, and last week we looked

at how the fear of man needs to be less than the fear of God.

And this week we're moving into Genesis chapter 21 where the

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

promise is delivered. Baby Isaac is born to Abraham

and Sarah. Their lives are completely

transformed. And it's a beautiful chapter, a

chapter replete with joy and laughter and justice, new

beginnings. And even as we get into this

passage today, I just titled my sermon as a Promise delivered

because I believe that all of us this year are going to

experience the delivery of a promise to us, something we may

have been waiting on for years on end.

God is doing a rich work within us and around us, and He is

going to bring it to fruition. We're going to see it with our

own eyes. We're going to experience it in

our lives. And even as I begin to read, I

just want to ask that you would really quieten yourself down to

ask God. Lord, show me how it's going to

come to pass. Give me the faith to wait for it

to be delivered to me. That's the desire I have for

each of us. Reading from Genesis chapter 21

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

verses one to seven, this is what it says.

Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the

Lord did for Sarah what He had promised.

Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age.

At the very time God had promised him, Abraham gave the

name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised

him as God commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when

his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said God has brought me

laughter and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.

And she added, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would

nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in

his old age. It's so beautiful.

These 1st 7 verses are just so full of joy.

That's the predominant theme of those first 7 verses.

But interestingly, it keeps talking about how the Lord was

gracious to Sarah. The Lord did for Sarah what He

had promised. It just shows what a small role

we humans play in the fulfillment of the promises that

God gives us to begin with. And is beautiful because when

God comes through on his word, which he always does, he never

goes back on his word. When he comes through, the kind

of things that he enables us to do is is beyond our imagination

because it says over here that she is old.

She's 90 years old. No one would have dreamt she

could nurse her baby, let alone deliver one, look after one.

And yet God did it. The things you can do, the

things you and I can do when God's hand is upon us, the

things you and I can do when God brings His word to pass in our

lives is amazing. You can finish a college degree

when you're old. You could.

Find restoration in a marriage that you thought was in ashes.

You could break free of an addiction.

You could come clean. You could find healing.

You might make a miraculous bounce back after a long winded

ailment. You may discover the root cause

for a certain issue that has been recurrent in your life.

The things that can happen when God's hand is upon you and when

He is gracious to you is amazing, just like it was in

Sarah's life. And I want to just encourage you

before we go further. If you are someone like Sarah,

you've been in the weight for a long time for that spouse, for

that child, for the return of a spouse or the return of a child,

or for justice, a reconciliation or restoration of things you

have lost. Maybe you've had huge losses in

your life and maybe you've been waiting for something to change,

the tide to change, for the emotions that you've been

longing for. You want joy to be restored.

I want to encourage you from the book of Job.

Job chapter 8 verse 21 says He will yet fill your mouth with

Job 8:21

laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.

That is our God. He is just, He is faithful, He

is good. He will bring back joy and

laughter when the promise is fulfilled.

Happiness. Will.

Come back, you will be restored. As we continue to read, we're

reading from verse 8 onwards. It says the child grew and was

weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great

feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom

Haga the Egyptian had born to Abraham was mocking.

And she said to Abraham, Get rid of that slave woman and her son,

for that woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my

son Isaac. The matter distressed Abraham

greatly because it concerned his son.

But God said to him, Do not be so distressed about the boy and

your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells

you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be

reckoned. I will make the son of the slave

into a nation also, because he is your offspring.

Early the next day Abraham took some food and a skin of water

and gave them to Haga. He sent them on her.

He set them on her shoulders and sent her off with the boy.

She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.

When the water and the skin was gone, she put the boy under one

of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down

about a bow shot away, for she thought, I cannot watch the boy

die. And as she sat there, she began

to sob. God heard the boy crying.

And the Angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to

her, What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid.

God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.

Lift the boy up, take him by the hand, for I will.

Make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she

saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin

with water and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up.

He lived in the desert and became an while he was living in

the desert of Paran, his mother got him a wife from Egypt.

So you see that as the promised child has come through for

Abraham and said Isaac has been born, but on the day that he is

weaned, he was probably two or three years old, is the day that

Ishmael's life's trajectory completely shifts.

There's a pivotal moment where everything turns and it turns

out that Ishmael, like any old 13 or 14 year old, was taunting

his baby brother. He was mocking him.

I guess that's what the scripture says.

And that was the straw that broke the back of the camel, so

to speak. There must have already been a

lot of tension between Hagar, Ishmael and Sarah with her

newborn baby. There must have been this

tension in the camp. And finally, this was the straw

that broke the camel's back. Sarah tells Abraham.

Enough is enough, get rid of them.

Now the sentiment, the sentiment, the root of the

sentiment was an insecurity, but it was also the pre knowledge

that if Ishmael lingered he would ask he would be heir

apparent because he was the first born son and Sarah just

said he will not share the inheritance.

It was it was almost like reminiscent of the voice of God.

God had a plan for Isaac's life. Isaac would be the one through

whom the inheritance would be reckoned.

Ishmael would be a veteran to that.

And so she initiates again, like she initiated back in the day.

She engineered one kind of a miracle.

She decides to send him away. And of course, Abraham is

heartbroken like any father. Would be this is his first born

son. This child didn't deserve this

treatment. The slave woman was actually at

the beck and call of Abraham and Sarah.

She didn't deserve it either. But look at the graciousness of

God. Look at the kindness of God

towards this Egyptian slave girl that he sees her, he sees the

Son that is born to her and his eyes are on them.

Now as I was reading this, I've read this so many times the past

few days and it it just warmed my heart to know that God sees

the ones who are discarded. God sees the ones who no one

wants. God sees you when when people

cut ties with you. God sees you when people said no

more enough, a season has ended. God sees you.

God doesn't let go of you. And the beautiful thing is, I

was reading a few chapters before how God assures Hagar

when when Sarah mistreats her and sends her away.

Hagar is in a similar situation. She's again in her wilderness,

lost, bewildered because she'd been mistreated and abused and

sent away. And God tells her, go back,

submit, because He knew Ishmael needed to be born in that camp

first. He sends her back, she comes

back, she coexists with Sarah and births that baby.

But now this is a different season completely.

Just as Isaac has been born as the promised son has been

delivered, there's a new season waiting for Hagar and Ishmael.

It doesn't belong with Abraham and his camp anymore.

It doesn't belong with them in the land of the Philistines

where they were living. Instead, God was pivoting them

around and showing them a new direction.

And as hard as that is, as hard as it is to to be moved out of a

place you're comfortable with, the place you've only known God

is with them. I love that.

I love that God is with them. It says God was with the boy as

he grew up, as much as God was in Abraham's camp, God was with

Ishmael. God was with his mother Hagar.

And it's beautiful because it says in later chapters they'll

tell you about Ishmael's sons, and he had twelve sons.

Right. And he had twelve sons.

These guys became 12 tribal heads, they were chieftains,

they were sheikhs, and they became a mighty nation.

God. Didn't overlook Ishmael.

If you ever thought that, you ever thought, well, you know

what bad treatment. In the midst of the bad

treatment, God was faithful God, a Redeemer, even redeemed.

That. But interestingly, you know,

when I think about it, when I think about these chain of

events in the ESV, the subtitle for this part of the story, it

says God protects Hagar and Ishmael.

Isn't that an interesting perspective?

Because in moving Hagar and Ishmael out of Abraham's camp,

God overnight got them freedom. Hagar was no longer going to be

considered a slave girl. She was now the mother of

Ishmael, the mother of a mighty Chieftain, and he was going to

grow into this huge nation. So it was liberation on all

levels. And sometimes when a season

ends, when, when, when, you know, there is a shift that

happens and we find ourselves isolated or solitary, it's not

all bad because it's in those moments that God establishes the

new trajectory, the new path, the new direction for our lives.

I love that God opened Hega's eyes to a well.

And he says, stop crying, get up, lead the boy, give him a

drink and go in the opposite direction.

There is no more a call to surrender and submit to Sarah.

But he's saying, I'm going to do something new in your life.

And I believe that for any of us who have been wandering in a

desert, you've been disappointed by people, you've been let down.

I want to encourage you, ask God to open your eyes to see that

well of sustenance, because our living water is Jesus.

He is available wherever you are.

You may be in the midst of the biggest, widest, starkest desert

you've ever been in. He is there with you, as He was

with Ishmael, as He was with Hagar.

He is with you and me. And his promises to Hagar didn't

fail because a couple of chapters back when he talks to

Hagar in that wilderness season when she was pregnant with

child, he says, I'm going to make you the mother of a nation

because your son, this boy who you're going to birth, he's

going to be a wild donkey of a man.

Everyone's hand is going to be against him.

He's going to be up in arms, but he will be a mighty nation.

And God didn't fail. Hagar.

Isn't that amazing? So when you think about it, as

much as this was a promise delivered for Abraham and Sarah,

this was also a promise delivered for Hagar.

Isn't that amazing? As we continue to read, we're

going to continue reading from verse 22 onwards.

This is what it says at the time, Abimelech and Ficol, the

commander of his forces, said to Abraham.

God is with you in everything you do.

Now swear to me here before God. That you will not deal falsely

with me or my children or my descendants.

Show to me in the country where you now reside as a foreigner,

the same kindness I have shown to you, Abraham said.

I swear it. And then Abraham complained to

ABI Malik about a well of water. The ABI Malik servants had

ceased. But ABI Malik said I don't know

who has done this. You did not tell me and I heard

about it only today. So Abraham brought sheep and

cattle and gave them to ABI Malik, and the two men made a

treaty. Abraham set apart 7 ewe lambs

from the flock, and Abimelech asked Abraham, what is the

meaning of these 7 ewe lambs you have set apart by themselves?

He replied, Except these seven lambs from my hand as a witness

that I dug this well. So that place was called

Beersheba, because the two men swore an oath there after.

After the treaty had been made at Beersheba, Abimelech and

Ficol, the commander of his forces returned to the land of

the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree

in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord,

the eternal God, and Abraham. Stayed in the land of the

Philistines for a long time. This is the.

End of the chapter and it's talking about a treaty that is

being signed between the king of the Philistines, ABI Malik.

We just looked at him last last week with Geshom as he was

teaching us about how Abraham, in a moment of fear, a fear of a

human king, made an unwise call of sending his wife in there

into that palace. And today we're looking again at

the same abimelech. With the head of his forces,

knowing that Abraham was more blessed, knowing that he was a

man of God, knowing that he had the living God back him up.

And they come to him and say, you know what?

Swear that you and I will live at peace, and our ancestors and

our descendants too. And that's what's happening.

And as they're doing that, Abraham clears, you know, a bit

of misunderstanding and says, you know what?

You guys are fighting for a well that I dug.

We need to make understand that this was something I dug, right?

And so they named the well. Abraham named that well

Beersheba. It was the well of the oath.

And why after they depart, it's interesting.

Abraham plants a tree there and calls on the name of God.

It's an act of worship. It's an act of Thanksgiving.

Think about it. He's found water, He's had his

promised child. He he's, he's understanding

God's plans, probably to a greater extent.

He has so much to be grateful for.

And therefore he plants this tree and worships God.

And as I was reading it, I was just realizing that, you know, a

season of the fulfillment when a promise comes full circle, when

you see it's fulfillment evolve in front of your eyes, it's

never just a stationary season. It's never a season where you

just sit in an easy chair, receive all those promises and

just kind of vegetate. It isn't that.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

If you look at the season in Abraham and Sarah's life,

there's so much of activity, there's so many things that are

happening simultaneously, which required them to to have a

constant and a steady movement. And it's something called

dynamic equilibrium. I was asking my son about this.

So basically, if an object is in movement, this dynamic

equilibrium keeps it in constant steady movement, right?

And the season. Of the fulfillment is like that,

you can't just say I'm going to check out for a bit.

I'm going to just languish here, relax, do nothing and enjoy my

promise. The beauty of the season is

while you are enjoying this promise, while you have so much

of joy being restored, there's so much to be done.

There are relationships to be built.

There are networks to be to be, you know, built.

There are so many decisions that have to be taken.

There are processes that have to be set in place.

There may be the cutting away of certain things that need to be

done. And so it's so important to be

very mindful of the season. It's not a season where you

completely do nothing. It's a season where you actually

have to be so avid about doing the things God is leading you to

do. This treaty between Abraham and

Abimelech was so important. To establish relationship for

the next generation because you'll see in a couple of

chapters later, Isaac has the has a similar encounter with ABI

Malik of that time. So it's so important that these

that the season is very well thought through and executed the

way God asks you to. But as we look at this, there

was this one word that stood out to me.

It says Abraham called on the name of the Lord.

And this is the third time Abraham is doing that.

He's done it two times before already.

He built an altar and called on the name of the Lord, it says.

But here it says he built an altar and called on the name of

the Lord, the eternal God El olam, eternal God, a God of

generations, because eventually they'll start calling him the

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was this.

God, who would outlast him? Who would outlive him?

And Abraham was seeing that. He may have felt he was 100

years old, too old to receive this promise.

And yet this eternal God was ageless, the uncreated one, the

one who existed outside of time. And yet he was right on time.

It says he gave Sarah the child at the time he had told Abraham

about. That is our God.

And so he was honouring this eternal God.

But how did he honor the word call?

The word call is very pivotal here.

The word is Kara QARA and it basically means to proclaim or

to. Call or to read aloud or to name

something or someone and it basically conveys the the act of

vocalizing or declaring something with intention and

purpose. And from a cultural and

historical perspective, basically proclamations were so

important in cultural settings in in communal settings, because

you were basically teaching and preserving oral traditions.

And you remember that verse that I gave us right at the beginning

of the series, Genesis chapter 18, verses 18 to 19, just before

Genesis 18:18–19

God is contemplating whether to tell him about Sodom and

Gomorrah. He's talking to himself.

And he says Abraham will surely become a great and powerful

nation and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.

For I have chosen him. So that he will direct his

children and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord

by doing what is right and just. So that the Lord will bring

about for Abraham what he has promised him.

The line there is I have chosen him so that he will direct his

children and his household. What Abraham was essentially

doing at Beersheba when he planted that tamarisk tree was

he was declaring to his entire community, his household, the

the many men of war he had trained, the skilled men, the

the maidservants, the shepherds, the the, the ones who ran his,

you know, all the business and endeavours that he probably had

all these guys called that called him their Chieftain.

And when he called on the name of the Lord at Beersheba, he was

essentially saying, guys, this is my God and I want him to be

your God. And it's so vital because for

all of us, we have people we're doing life with.

For me as a as a wife and a mother, I have my children, I

have my extended family. For you, I don't know who that

looks like. Could be your friends, it could

be your neighbors, it could be your parents, it could be your

spouse, it could be kids. But my question is, do you call

upon the name of the Lord with the intent to proclaim who He

has been thus far to you? Because when we do that, it

changes everything. It's no longer about me just

knowing this God. It's about me telling others,

hey, this is who He has been to me.

It's a very powerful moment. And I want to ask you, how

intentional are you about calling aloud on this God?

How intentional are you? On talking about your God to

others, even as we look at this chapter, you know it's a

delivery of a promise. The promised child is brought

forth. I just want to leave two things

for you. Basically, if you are saying,

well, I'm waiting for my promise to be delivered to me.

Maybe it's a promise that God has given you of restoration.

Maybe it's a promise for healing, maybe it's a promise

for increase, maybe it's a promise of some sort which which

you don't even understand, but you've just been claiming it for

yourself. I want to just leave two things

with you. How do you prepare for the

fulfillment of your promises? Are your promises going to be

fulfilled? Absolutely, absolutely.

Because God is faithful to His Word, because He's the guarantor

of every promise. He will bring it to pass.

How he does it, I won't know. You may not know till it

happens. When again, he does it at the

perfect time. He's not arbitrary.

He's right on time. But the beautiful thing is that

we can prepare ourselves as we wait for the fulfillment.

And there's two things, I believe two ways in which we can

prepare ourselves for the delivery of these promises.

The first thing is that we watch who we believe.

It's so important that we know who we are believing in and on.

When God gives us a word, it is His word.

So I have to choose to believe him.

But the problem is so often we are living in a world of noise

that if God has told you I will restore your health and heal all

your wounds. But your counsellor is telling

you differently, your doctor is telling you differently, your

friends are telling you differently, your parents are

speaking differently over you. You start to doubt if God really

told you that. If God said I will repay to you

the years the locusts have eaten, but people from your past

are saying no way, there's no way that God can repay this, You

are too far gone. You start to believe them and

it's so important that you watch who you believe and I love.

This verse 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 20 to 22 says for no

2 Corinthians 1:20–22

matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ,

and so through him the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of

God. Now it is God who makes both us

and you. Stand firm in Christ.

He anointed us, set a seal of ownership on us, and put His

Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to

come. It's beautiful because every

promise that is in the Word of God, every promise, any problem,

you take, any promise from there.

If He said He will set you free, you are set free.

It is true. You start believing it, you

start standing on that promise, He will come through on it.

But the problem is that most often we are not believing that

it's God's word to us. So as hard as the process of

being set free is somewhere midway, we believe, you know,

maybe I'm just meant to be in bondage forever.

Maybe I'm just meant to live in this deception forever.

Maybe I'm always meant to have this lack of clarity.

But God is saying, no, I'm going to give you a new mind.

I'm going to give you a new heart.

That is God's Word. If God has said it, God will do

it. And the way we know it is when

the Spirit within us reverberates with the

fulfillment of that promise. And it's up to us whether we

listen to the Spirit's voice. It's up to us whether we will

allow the Holy Spirit to give us confidence and confirmation that

God's Word is true. Imagine if Sarah had listened to

the many midwives and and gynecologists of that time.

She lived in different towns. There must have been different

medicine men who visited. Imagine if she believed the word

that they spoke over how there's no way in the New Testament says

she didn't even have the way of women.

There was no monthly indicator that she could get pregnant.

And yet God did it against every medical Lord.

If Sarah had listened to her doctors.

Can you picture where her faith would have been?

Imagine for Abraham, God's telling him, every place that

your foot touches is yours. Walk up and down this land, the

land of Canaan, it's all yours. If he had a wealth manager, he

was probably going to say, how is that going to happen?

You're just a guy with flocks and herds.

What are you going to do? How are you going to afford it?

There are foreign kings in these places.

How are you going to do it? If he had a location manager,

he's probably going to look at the length and breadth of the

land and say no way. As you wait for your promise,

watch out for who you listen to, who you believe.

If you believe the voices around you, it's very possible that you

will stop. Believing in the God who

actually called you, the God who gave you the promise.

I was reading about World War 2 and worldwide love reading

about, you know, these World War reports and things that happened

then. And one of the interesting

inventions during that time was the radio and all sides in the

world was that happened. World War One and World War 2.

All of them used radio to use it As for their propaganda, both

the good side, the not so good side, all of them used it for

propaganda. And the interesting thing was

once they started broadcasting on radio, this was all people

had at home. And I, I was reading that a

couple of countries even sold radios at very low budgets just

so that the people all had access to it.

And what would happen is there was hardly any work for people

to do. A lot of them are just hiding in

homes, bracing themselves for the impact of war.

So all their radios were tuned in through the day and every day

at certain times there would be these broadcast shows which

which would, you know, come over the Airways.

Messages were sent to nations. I remember reading about how in

Britain, Winston Churchill's famous radio broadcasts were

sent to the country and, and so many people were motivated by

what they heard. They were encouraged.

They were they were moved to not give up.

So many young men enrolled in the war because of what they

heard around the globe during the world was these propagandas

were released. These messages were released

messages of hope, messages to to, you know, polarized people.

Everything was sent on the Airways and it was what they

heard that they believed. We're no different.

We may not have radio today, but we are in a in a time of noise.

We don't actually have radio silence.

We have podcasts, we have Netflix shows, we have we tend

to binge watch. We are receiving things on our

WhatsApp. We have the the the voices of

our family ringing in our ears. But my question to you is the

Holy Spirit is in your heart as a deposit guaranteeing what is

to come. If God said this is going to

happen, He is in your heart vibrating with with you know

this and pulsating with this feeling of saying it's going to

happen. Hold on, don't give up.

And that's the voice of the Holy Spirit.

How tuned are you to the voice of the Holy Spirit?

That's the first thing. Watch out for who you believe.

The second thing I want to leave with you is watch how you live.

And you probably think, well. All of you pastors say the same

thing. You all tell us to watch how we

live. Well, let me just say this that

there's a certain change that has to happen when we start

positioning ourself for the promise.

You remember last week Sarah and Abraham had heard just before

Sodom and Gomorrah went down. God says by this time next year

you're going to have a child, correct?

So they knew there's a timeline one year.

So basically. In another 2-3 months, she would

probably get pregnant and then the baby would be born at the

end of the year. So they had a timeline and place

God had spoken. But what happens is in the

middle of that, they're entering the area of the Philistines,

right? And they meet Abimelech and

Abraham gets afraid. Tell Sarah that, you know, tell

them you're my wife. She's taken into the harem of

the king. Wrong place, wrong time, and she

was never meant to enter that palace.

She was not meant to be queen consort to a Pagan king.

She was meant to be the mother of the promised child.

What was she doing in such a foreign place?

What was she doing out of the place where God had actually

wanted her to be? Why did Abraham get afraid at

such a pivotal moment? He could have potentially

corrupted the bloodline if Abim Alaik or any of his guys had

touched her, had defiled her. It's so important that we watch

how we live when there's a promise in the wake.

It's so important when God has given a promise for you to birth

that we don't defile ourselves when we wait for the promise. 2

Corinthians 7 verse one I'm reading from the Amplified.

It says Therefore, since we have these great and wonderful

promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from

everything that contaminates body and spirit completely

completing holiness, living a consecrated life, a life set

apart for God's purpose in the fear of God.

Let us cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates

body and spirit completing holiness in the fear of God.

God is calling us to holiness. God is calling us to a place of

deep consecration and and the things that contaminate body and

spirit. What are the things that

contaminate you and me in our body and in our spirit?

Is it anger? Is it hate?

Is it the thoughts of revenge? Is it the thoughts of paying

someone back? Is it the thought of wiping

someone out? Is it the thought of slandering

and pulling them down? Is it the thought of passing

hateful gossip around so that their reputation is spoiled?

Is it you engaging in lewd acts with people under the covers of

darkness when no one knows? Is it you hiding behind the

facade of a Instagram handle and perpetuating hate or violence?

What is it that you've been engaging in that now that you

have a promise on the horizon, need to change how you live?

Because you're going to be carrying a weighty promise.

It's going to be so pivotal. It's going to be life changing.

Remember, the promises of God are yes and Amen.

And if the Holy Spirit is the one within you guaranteeing it's

completion, it means it has eternal ramifications.

There are eternal things that are going.

To come out of that promises fulfillment.

How can we corrupt ourselves as we wait for that promise?

It's so beautiful because he says he's calling us to cleanse

ourselves in complete holiness, a life that is set apart.

Last year our theme at church was being set apart.

And I know a lot of us went through a season of refining

where God removed certain people, God removed certain

habits, God removed certain traits in our life that was

contaminating his presence, that was contaminating his anointing

in our lives. But the interesting thing is

that God is calling us to consecration.

You remember we looked at circumcision, a surgery of the

heart. When God actually cuts away the

parts of our heart that is corrupt, that is vile, that is

wicked, that is broken, and He's giving us a new heart, it's so

important that we begin to live in a way that honours God, but

that we live in a place that fears Him.

The way that we conduct our business becomes different.

The way that we treat people changes.

The way we speak to ourselves in the hiddenness of our lives

changes. The things we engage in, the

language we use, the demeanor we have, the ethics we possess, the

integrity we display, all of it changes because of the promise

that needs to be fulfilled. We don't do it just so that the

promise is fulfilled and then revert to old ways.

No, it's because the promise, when it comes, it's going to

change our lives, it's going to change our destiny.

And therefore I need to prepare myself for that.

I was recently reading the story of a town in northern Australia.

It's called Orokun and it's an Aboriginal town.

It's got about 7 clans that have come together to form this

little town. And in the 1800's the gospel of

Jesus reached this town and, and most of the people heard about

Jesus changed their lives. But interestingly, these clans

still had differences. And so this nature of wanting an

eye for an eye, tooth for tooth still existed.

So in 2015 there was a murder that happened in one clan.

It was committed by a member of another clan.

And so the clan which had lost its loved one was out for

retribution. And they had put this word out

saying that clan which committed the murder, we want one person

dead. From there, then we're equal,

fair and square. The spirit of revenge was

strong. But then this amazing thing

happened in 2016 when a group of these people in this town began

to see God. They started praying.

They've gathered together. They began to pray and say God

bring a revival here. You will not believe over the

next few months. There was such a.

Revival that broke out in this small community.

This town just about about had about 1300 people, but by the

end of that year, 1000 people had come to the Lord.

They were worshipping together in that community hall.

There was no talk of revenge. In fact, the community that had

lost its loved 1 extended forgiveness to the other clan

and said we don't want anything in exchange.

Joy, peace, oneness was what was celebrated.

And the thing that I want to ask you is when God moves in, when

the gospel takes its work and shapes our lives, we don't

behave and think and act the way we did.

We ideally behave differently. We begin to behave more like

Jesus. And when that happens, it

changes how we live. It changes how we react.

And so how do you and I live as we wait for the fulfillment of

the promise? It is inevitable.

Promise is going to be fulfilled.

But how do we live as we wait? How do we live as we live in

anticipation of that promise? It matters.

It really matters as we conclude, as we close up today,

I want to just encourage you about one thing.

This has been on my head a lot. But you know, sometimes we think

that, you know, if God gives me this promise fulfilled, if I see

the fruition of it, my life is sorted, I'm done.

But I believe that every promise that he gives us has such far

reaching impact and consequences.

It it outlives us many times, but the promise is really never

about us. When you look at Abraham and

Sarah, they moved from Abraham to Sarai to Abraham and Sarah

because God now breathed life into them and gives them this

far reaching impact. They're no longer just confined

to the small portion of Canaan. But he's saying the he was

literally saying the world is your oyster.

Go out the ends of the earth, they belong to you.

That was what God was saying, because through Abraham and

Sarah and their child Isaac would come Jacob, and through

Jacob would come 12 patriarchs, 12 tribes, and out of these 12

tribes the nation of Israel would form and.

Through them, through the tribe of Judah, Jesus would come

forth, and Jesus was the seed of Abraham that would save the

whole world. You know how salvation would

reach the ends of the world through Jesus.

And so it was so important for Isaac to happen.

It was so important that that fulfilment would happen.

Sometimes we look at the promises of God in our lives and

think, wow, this is for me, this is for my enlargement, this is

for my blessing, this is for my restoration.

And I was remembering one of my son's toys.

So he's been playing with this over the weekend.

As I was watching him, I asked him to explain to me how this

toy works. So this is basically the front

of this tractor. And when we look at our lives as

we wait for the promise, we're like this tractor.

We're waiting. We're saying, God, use me, do

these things. I want these promises, you know,

to be fulfilled in my life. And the beautiful thing is that

God in his graciousness, God in his goodness, God in his

faithfulness does bring the promise in.

And that's much like this huge trailer, the promise in our

lives. This Is Us and this is the

promise being added in our lives.

And I was asking my son to explain this to me.

So this apparently this truck has this very interesting

feature. I'm going to probably going to

demonstrate it in the in person service.

But this trailer basically has this ability to house 30 cars.

And apparently he asked us for this a couple of years back.

I don't remember. So this this house is all of

these cars and he said, Mama, this has got this beautiful

feature where you can put the cars in here and then you can

launch it out through the front. And I felt like that was a

prophetic demonstration of what a fulfilled promise for you and

me looks like. You see, when we are waiting on

God for the promise and we're waiting, we're watching how

we're living. We're watching who we are

believing, and then the promise happens.

The fulfillment happens. It's never only about us,

because as much as we're living in the joy of that fulfillment,

God uses it to bless others. Just like Abraham and Sarah were

necessary for Jesus to happen so that the world would know of

him, the world would be reconciled to God.

The world would have the privilege of knowing God as

their Father, and each person who believed would be called a

child of God. Similarly, each of us, when our

promise is fulfilled, because of its eternal ramifications, we

are a channel of blessing to someone else.

Your promise may help you launch someone else.

Into their destiny. Isn't that amazing?

It's never only about us. It's never about you alone.

It's never about me alone. So I want you to ask God, Lord,

even as I wait for that fulfillment of the promise, show

me where I've made it about myself so my son has his other

toy. Interestingly, he had a lot of

demonstratable toys for me this week.

So he had this other toy and he was explaining this to me.

So he said it's very similar trailer Mama, but this has this

one thing which can use be used to pick up.

It can pick up cars or whatever. And he said, you turn it and you

drop this back on it. And I realized that many times

when I look at my promises, you know, the things that I've asked

God for and I'm believing God for, I want it solely for

myself. I want it solely for my family.

I want it solely for my marriage.

I want it solely for the inheritance of the legacy I'm

leaving for my children. And that's it, end of story.

But the truth is God is calling me to be a conduit of blessing.

God is calling me to be someone who launches others.

To their blessing launches others to their God-given

destiny. It's never going to be about

myself. And so I want to encourage you

that you would be so mindful that this promise God has given

you won't end with you that you will ask God, Lord, what is this

really about? What is it really about God?

What is this promise going to do for me?

But more than that, what is it going to do for you?

What is it going to do for your people?

What is it going to do for the church?

What is it going to do for the communities around me?

What is it going to do for the world?

Because it never really is about us.

Even as we close, I want to reiterate that Abraham called on

the eternal God Al Olam, the God of generations.

It was not something that he had fully understood, but he

realized that this God would outlive him.

His promises would outlive him. If you read Hebrews 11 it talks

about. The Hall of Faith.

And all these men and women who by faith had had just done the

things God had called them to do.

But it's said at the end of it, many of them didn't see in their

lifetime the thing that God had promised them.

And that always scares me. It actually bums me out a bit

because I'm thinking, God, I do want to see it in my lifetime.

But a picture of that is in that tamarisk tree that Abraham

planted at Beersheba. So I was reading up on the

tamarisk tree. Tamarisk tree is basically a

desert loving tree. It lives in the desert.

It's a beautiful tall tree. But the interesting thing is

it's a very slow growing tree. So I'm guessing he didn't go and

plant a tree. He probably planted a a, a seed

or a sapling. But in planting it there, I

think it was an image of the fact that Abraham may not live

to see it grow or to see its fruit or to eat of its fruit,

but that God would, that God would outlive him.

God would see it to pass. God would see it to fruition.

God would see it to its end, much like our lives.

And yet Abraham took the first step of planting it.

Many of us are unwilling to plant that seed, to take that

first step of faithfulness because you're like, I won't,

you know, reap anything from this.

I won't get anything from it. If I get something in it, then

I'll probably do it. If I can serve and get something

out of it, I'll do it. But the truth is that God is

calling us to sow Someone else may reap, someone else may eat

the fruit, but God is still calling me to be faithful in the

sowing. Abraham was faithful because he

knew his God was eternal. You may think no one saw the

years of your hiddenness. God was with you in the hidden

hiddenness. God was watching you in those

obscure moments when you were doing that which was right.

God may has seen your days of tithing and giving your

offerings even when you had so little.

He watched that. He saw your faithfulness.

God saw your faithfulness in that marriage even when no one

else appreciated it. Even when your own spouse didn't

respect it. God watched it.

God sees your faithfulness when you bring those children up.

No accolades, no applause. He watches every decision you

make. He sees you, He's in it.

God watches you as you work those hard shifts at work.

You're not getting any praise from your boss, but he sees it.

If you stay faithful in that, He's an eternal God.

The rewards are eternal because remember, our life on earth is

just a very short span, but eternity is forever.

So what I do now, outlive, outlives me because God is a God

of eternity. He's the eternal God and you can

trust Him. Maybe you're saying, God, my

time is running up. You promised me this.

But Lord, I'm getting older. My biological clock is ticking.

My family is giving me hell. That this hasn't happened in

this time frame. I want to encourage you.

He holds time in his hands. He's outside of time and yet

he's right on time always. He's right on time, never

arbitrary. I love that verse at the

beginning of this chapter which says at the very time God had

promised him, she bore him a son at the very time.

He's never late, He's always on time.

So even as we close, I want to ask you, will you call upon God

like he did? So that everyone around you,

your family, your loved ones, your neighbors, the ones that

love you, the ones that are dependent on you, would hear you

call on him, would hear you call on him and say, I want that God.

I want that dependence they have.

I want that love relationship that they have.

Will you believe that every promise God has given you is yes

and Amen in Christ Jesus? It's not just rattled off off

the top of someone's head. It was made by God.

It is ratified by Him. Will you live consecrated for

Him? Will you choose who you believe?

Don't believe every voice you hear.

Let the Holy Spirit be the voice that is loudest.

Will you live in a way that is consecrated to Him?

Ask Him. Lord, consecrate my life.

Consecrate my body, consecrate my spirit.

Even if you've lived a life that has been less than consecrated,

it's never too late. Just a prayer of me saying,

Jesus, forgive me, I repent and he's waiting there with his arms

open wide. It's never too late because

remember, every promise will be delivered, every single one.

Can we pray together? Father, I just thank you for

this time. I thank you for you.

How faithful in every way for everything you have said is yes

and Amen in Christ Jesus. And we thank you that God, you

are an eternal God, Abraham, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I thank you that Lord, your word is true, and I pray for anyone

who's doubting it today that Lord, they will go back to your

word. They will sit with you in spirit

of God. Will you bring enlightenment?

Will you bring revelation from Your word?

Explain to them the heart of the Father for them.

I pray for those who are not able to see the eternal

consequences of that promise, the eternal ramifications.

I pray this week they would have fresh understanding on why you

promised them that and how it's going to impact lives beyond

them. I pray for those who have been

faithfully sowing those seeds who haven't yet eaten the fruit

of the. Plant that has grown, I pray God

it'll be a season of harvest. It'll be a season of resting in

what you have done, in the fruit you have grown, in the growth

you have brought. I pray that God territories will

be enlarged, restoration would happen, recompense will be felt.

I pray, O God, healing would touch their lives.

I pray that Lord, those who have felt unloved will experience the

love of God like never before. Help us, be with us.

We honor you, El Olam, eternal God, we bless your holy name.

In Jesus mighty name I pray, Amen, Amen.

Even as you head into this week, I pray that you will experience

God like never before, that you will invite him in and say,

Lord, here I am, I'm waiting with you.

You're not waiting alone for the fulfillment of the promise.

You wait with the one who gave you the promise.

So hold his hand, wait on him, see how he brings it to pass.

Remember, whoever finds Jesus finds life.

Have an amazing week. God bless you.

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