What if the God you always imagined isn't the God scripture reveals?

We all carry ideas about who God is.

Ideas shaped by culture, experience, and tradition.

People have tried for centuries to tame scripture.

Every time someone tries to fit him into their existing worldview, he pushes back.

He confronts assumptions, disrupts comfort, and invites us...

to see reality through him.

Encountering the real God doesn't tweak your worldview.

It flips it upside down.

All right, I want to welcome Wesco.

I want to welcome Rancho and, of course, our San Dimas campus.

I'm in two passages of Scripture.

This weekend, Hebrews chapter 6, verse 17 is the text that will kind of govern everything that we say, but it's directly tied to Genesis 15.

So you'll want to put a finger in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 17, and then over in the Old Testament, Genesis 15.

Most of you know if you've been around for a long time, I'm a huge sports fan, and I particularly like to pull for the underdogs.

Which is why I think most Americans like the 1981 Olympic men's hockey team.

How many of you remember that?

It's one of the most famous hockey games, at least to most Americans, because you had a bunch of amateur college players from America up against four-time gold medal winners, the USSR professional hockey team, and the Americans took the game.

I remember exactly where I was at the moment.

And there's a movie actually made after this famous game called Miracle on Ice.

But I also enjoy comeback stories.

You know when a team looks like it's gone out for the count and it comes back from nowhere?

How many of you remember the 2016 NBA Finals?

You had the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors.

And the Warriors that year were 73-9, which was the best regular season record ever.

Well, they were up three games to one over the Cavaliers, but Cleveland came back to win the title.

It was Cleveland's first major sporting title in 52 years.

And it was the first team in NBA history to come back from a three to one deficit.

And then 2017, the Super Bowl, where the Patriots defeated the Falcons with the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.

The Patriots were down 28 to three, late in the third quarter.

Tom Brady, the GOAT, who was not yet known as the GOAT at the time, brought them back in overtime.

It was truly an amazing and perhaps a foreshadowing of what would come to pass in Tom Brady's ultimate career.

You know, what I like to do, I like to go back, and you can re-watch those games, and I like to look at the players' faces at halftime, because I know they're going to win, but they don't.

And you go back and you look at their faces, man, grown men are crying.

There's this incredible sadness, depression, dejection on the sidelines, a sense of hopelessness.

And seriously, you have these men just with their head down in their hands, and it's like they've not given up, but it's almost like it seems futile.

There's no way we can come back from this.

Now, here's what I've always wondered.

Do you think their demeanor would change at halftime?

If somehow they were able to get into a time machine and go to the end and realize that they win, would their attitude be any different at halftime if they could go to the end of the tape and they realized, wait a minute, ultimately we win this game.

If they knew they were going to win all along, do you think that they would respond to temporary setbacks differently than what we typically see?

And of course the answer to that is obviously.

If they know that the ultimate victory belongs to them, if they know that even though they lose some of the battles, they're ultimately going to win the war, they would have their head held high, they would keep moving forward.

In fact, they would possess a mind-boggling confidence.

People would actually think they've lost their minds, but it's only because they know something that the people don't know.

Now, let me ask you something quickly, and you're going to have to really follow me here.

What is the story of the gospel at its core?

Isn't the story that we are all sinners separated from God, that Jesus pursues us by leaving his home in heaven, he comes to planet Earth, dies on a Roman cross, paying the penalty that each of us knows, no matter how much we protest, that our sins deserve?

He bridges the gap between us and God, and all who call on his name and trust his provision.

His substitutionary sacrifice for us will have eternal life.

Is that not the gospel at its core?

Is that not the reason it's called good news?

Because we've been to the end of the tape and we know that in the end, our story ends well, right?

No matter how many setbacks, no matter how many defeats, no matter how many dismal failures, our story ends well.

We've been promised And we've been guaranteed, and this is the reason now, that the Christ follower pursues God with all that he or she has.

We want to take hold of the one who has taken hold of us.

We want to know the one who has made us, who sustains us.

We want to meet the one with whom we're going to spend eternity with, because surely we believe that if he gave us his own son, he would give us all good things, right?

All right.

So in one sense, It's kind of time that we Western Christians grew up a little bit, right?

It's time that we acknowledge what most of our Christian brothers all around the world in non-affluent sections of the planet have known for a long time.

And what is that?

We're going to have a lot of setbacks.

We're going to lose a lot of battles.

But we're going to ultimately win the war.

Jesus said, blessed are you when people insult you.

Not if people insult you, you're going to be insulted.

When people persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So, when you're insulted, you will be persecuted, you will be lied about, you will be slandered.

This world is not our home.

We will suffer temporary defeats.

But the promises of God, whatever those promises are, will be ultimately fulfilled in the kingdom that is to come.

And some of them will be fulfilled here, but not yet in full.

So we age, we suffer, our bodies do indeed decay.

We are wasting away, 2 Corinthians 4.

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

So the essential us is getting better.

It's only the outer shell that is disintegrating.

So what is the story?

What is the good news of the gospel?

You win in the end.

What is the realistic news in the here and now?

It's going to be tough.

It's going to be tough.

I remain amazed at how often I hear pastors, teachers, preachers try to act like...

That if you're a Christ follower, you're never going to be sick, you're never going to have any struggle, and you're never going to have any suffering.

Man, it's just not the real world.

Here's the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians.

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently.

been flogged more severely, been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I've received from the Jews the 49 lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was pelted with stones.

Three times I was shipwrecked.

I spent a day and night in the open sea.

I've been constantly on the move.

I've been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false believers.

I don't know why he didn't say I've just been in danger.

I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep.

I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food.

I have been cold and naked.

My goodness, this is the apostle Paul.

He's supposed to be the most spiritual man other than Jesus who ever lived.

This is the world in which we live.

And it's the world in which many Christ followers who live in places like Africa and India live today.

Have you ever read the story of Hebrews 11?

It's supposed to be the hall of faith for Christians or for Christ followers.

And yet here's what we're told in verse 13 of Hebrews 11.

All these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

In other words, all the promises that God gave, they didn't experience, but they knew.

that they would win in the end.

They've been to the end of the tape, and no matter how dismal it looks right now, they would win the ultimate victory.

They would win the war.

Now, okay, Pastor Jeff, what is your point?

Here's my point.

Here's the truth about your life.

You will, as a Christ follower, I can promise you, only because God has promised me, you will win in the end.

You will have the ultimate victory.

Everything sad in your life will become untrue.

Every lost child restored.

Every lost loved one reunited.

Every tragic event redeemed.

Every death brought back to life.

This is the story of the gospel and a result of the power of the resurrection.

But what is equally true is this.

You and I will suffer to some degree.

There will be some setbacks that will ultimately cause us to doubt the future.

Parents who pray for their children, parents who pray for their grandchildren, They just can't understand why God would not answer their prayers.

Well, first of all, most probably he does answer.

It's just not the one you want.

And you have to remember, no matter how much you pray for a child or grandchild, that child or grandchild still has the freedom to reject or choose God.

And God's not going to override the free will or the freedom of that child.

You pray and God releases his divine energy into the life of the children or grandchildren, but each of us have a decision to make.

So sometimes when things don't go the way we think they would, that is the time that the promises of God kind of disappear.

And we're starting to think, can I really trust that what God has promised me in the future will become a reality?

So here's the question.

If the Bible teaches that the kingdom of God is here now but not in full, and the promises of God will ultimately be fulfilled in the kingdom that is to come, then how is it possible for me right now to live a victorious life without allowing the temporary setbacks that I experience to rob me of the joy of what is yet to come?

That is the question.

How can I live with confidence and trust that...

That God will fulfill his promise and that nothing would shake me, that nothing would deter me, that nothing would discourage me from marching forward, trusting and expecting God to ultimately deliver on his promises.

Let me say again, have we not seen the end of the tape?

Have we?

Isn't that the purpose of God's revelation to us?

Do we not know how the story ends?

Yes, or as C.S.

Lewis said, do we not know how the real story begins?

Now, listen to the words of Scripture that I taught or that I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 17.

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.

God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

So the writer says, you and I have fled something.

What have we fled?

We have fled this world system and the way it thinks.

And we have gone over to the side of light.

We have left darkness into light, and we truly trust and believe that God's way is the best way, and ultimately, we will win the war.

So here's what I want to do in this quick passage.

I want to answer three questions.

Number one, what is the promise that we've been given that is undeniable?

Number two, how can we be certain?

And number three, how does the certainty of the promise anchor us?

You with me?

What's the promise that we're given?

How can we be certain?

And how does the certainty of the promise anchor us?

I want to take you back to a familiar story, but we're going to make some new application.

The background of Hebrews 6 is Genesis 15.

When God visited Abraham, these two passages are inextricably tied together.

And in Genesis 12, God says to Abraham, Abraham, get out.

Get out of your people, get out of your family, get out of your land, get out of your country.

And go to a land I will show you.

Get out of your father's house.

Leave it all behind.

And the Bible says that Abraham got out not knowing, and I love this word, whither he was going.

He didn't know where he's going.

He's just going.

In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abraham again, and he says, Abraham, I'm going to make you a great nation.

Your people will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, and out of your descendants is going to come someone who will bless all the nations.

Now, in Abraham's day, that is a big promise.

Abraham would have assumed two things.

Number one, he's going to assume that he's going to have a child.

You can't have a thousand or gazillion descendants unless you have the first one.

So he assumes they're going to have a child.

Second, he assumes that God's going to give him or his people a land, a protected territory for his people to prosper.

Now, in Genesis 15, Abraham comes to God and asks two questions.

He says, am I going to get this child really?

And am I really going to get this land?

So Abraham is questioning God.

Have you ever done that?

Hey, have you ever stared out into space and you began to think, what if all this Christian stuff is pie in the sky?

What if all this is wishful thinking?

Am I really saved?

Is there really a heaven and I'm going there?

I mean, I got a lot of issues.

I'm not always done what I should have done.

I've let myself down, my friends down.

I've let God down more than a few times.

Am I really going to heaven?

Is there really an inheritance waiting on me?

I mean, is death really the entryway into everything I've always wanted?

Or Is this kind of something that mankind has manufactured to ease the pain of meaninglessness and an insignificant life?

You ever had those thoughts?

Do you know pastors do too?

Oh yeah.

In Genesis 17, Abraham is like us and he doubts.

And so he comes to God and basically he says, God, you said, you said we're going to have a son.

And well, we've been waiting 25 years and I'm 99 years old and my wife Sarah is 90.

Now you can understand Abraham's objection, right?

But God's response is yes.

And your point is?

Am I not God?

If I said it's going to happen, it's going to happen.

And finally, in Genesis 22, a child is born to Abraham and Sarah named Isaac.

And what does God say to Abraham?

He says, Abram, take your son, your only son, the one you love with all your heart, and offer him up as a sacrifice to me.

Now, if you're Abraham, are you not thinking, what on earth is God doing?

Have you ever thought that?

Have you ever thought, God, what are you doing?

You're really in control of the world?

No offense, God, but I think I could do a better job.

You're really in control of my life?

As you read Abraham's story, you start to realize that he's P-O-H, plain old human.

That he's nothing special, really.

That he has his own issues, like Hagar.

So here's a normal, ordinary guy with lots of weaknesses, lots of disappointments, contradictions, and disillusionments.

He makes a lot of unwise decisions that results in unnecessary pain and struggle.

He lives with doubt, confusion concerning the way God works in his life.

In other words, he's just like us.

Wouldn't you say?

Okay.

hey, here's the point then.

God is the only God.

is aware of Abraham's humanity, and he wants Abraham to live a life, a big life, of peace and contentment and trust and obedience.

And he also knows that Abraham is weak in many areas.

So God is constantly working with Abraham to give him the certainty and assurance that despite the way things might look right now, God will fulfill his promises.

Now, some of you might say, man, I wish God would do that for me.

I wish God would give me a sign, some kind of sign that one day everything sad will become untrue, as you say, that every lost child will be restored, every lost loved one reunited, every tragic event redeemed, every death brought to life, every setback temporary, that everything that happens in my life or the life of my family, God will work together for good.

I wish he'd give me a sign.

But he did.

And it's the same sign he gave Abraham.

So that you can go to the end of the tape and you can know that in the end, you will win the ultimate battle, the ultimate war.

Now you say, well, hold on, Pastor Jeff.

We're talking about Abraham here.

Now let's talk about me.

I know what God promised Abraham.

What did God promise me?

What did God promise you?

He promises you that you will win the ultimate victory, that everything that happens in your life, no matter how random you think it is, that God has this uncanny ability to work everything together for good, to bring restoration, redemption, and that everything you've lost in this life, he has promised to replace to an infinitely greater degree.

That's the promise.

So like Abraham, you'd say, how can I be sure?

And I might say, well, because God said so.

But here's the deal.

And this is why we're looking at this text.

If you think about it, the real problem is not God.

The real problem is you.

Our problem is not with God.

Our problem is with ourselves.

Look at the way Abraham responds to God.

I'm in Genesis 15, 8.

But Abraham said, O sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain position of it?

That's amazing.

He's questioning God.

But We do the same thing.

How can I know that you'll work everything out?

How can I know that you'll prosper me?

How can I know that you'll give me a hope and a future?

How can I know that everything I've lost will be restored to an infinitely greater degree?

God does not say to Abraham, how dare you ask me that?

Did you notice?

How dare you question me?

Instead, oh man, I love this story.

Instead, here's what happens.

Genesis 15 verse 9, so the Lord said to him, Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with the dove and a young pigeon.

Abram bought all these things to him, cut them in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other.

The birds, however, he did not cut in half.

Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

Now you and I read that, what do we think?

This is why I don't read the Bible.

This is just crazy stuff.

This is bizarre.

Bizarre.

Go get some animals and cut them in half and place them in a walkway.

I mean, I'm sure the animals didn't cooperate, but Abraham doesn't question.

He goes out and does exactly what God told him.

He brought the animals, he cut them into pieces, he laid them out just as God required.

What a gruesome, chaotic scene this must have been.

What's happening?

Now, Just follow me for a moment.

So most of you know I lived in New Zealand for 10 years, and I did a lot of weddings.

Man, I did a lot of weddings.

Everybody wants to get married on the beach in New Zealand.

This seems like I spent most of my time doing weddings.

And when you do weddings in New Zealand, they're very similar to our weddings in America, except for one major difference.

At some point during the ceremony, everything stops, and everybody goes behind this table.

And the bride and the groom and the witnesses and the pastor, they all kneel down.

And somebody brings out this big book and this fancy pen.

And you've got part of the ceremony, a huge part, is the signing of the register.

You've got to sign your name.

What are you signing?

You're signing, I promise to keep my vows.

to this woman, I promise to keep my vows to this man, and everybody else signs too, the pastor and the witness.

Now, I know we do that in America, but it's usually an afterthought.

It's not like 20 minutes of the primary ceremony.

And while you're doing that, people are nodding and they're talking and somebody's singing, somebody might be reading poetry, but it's a significant part of a New Zealand wedding ceremony.

Now, my father, when I got married, I was about to leave the curtain behind stage and go out on stage at the beginning of the ceremony.

And my father dangled my car keys and said, hey, son, you can leave right now.

No, I'm serious.

My father, you take the keys.

I'll cover for you.

Get in the car and drive away as fast as you can.

Because once you walk onto that stage, it's over.

You got one wife.

That's it.

Do you understand that, son?

It was his way of trying to...

Help me realize what I was about to do.

In New Zealand, you sign that paper, you are legally responsible and bound.

When Robin and I, I mean, Robin and I have lived in everything from a farmhouse.

We lived in a trailer on a piece of farm property.

And then finally, when we came here in 2008, we got our house, our first real house of where we own it.

Well, the bank owns it, but we're making payments.

And I remember me with a real estate agent and she warned me, when you show up, there's going to be a lot of papers to sign.

She wasn't kidding, man.

It was like this.

And you're not going to read all that, are you?

No, but you're responsible for everything you sign.

So there's a trust between you and the agent.

Thank God my agent was honest.

Here's the point.

When you get married in New Zealand, the question is, how do I know you'll keep your word?

You sign.

If you don't sign, there's no consequences.

But if you do sign, consequences come if you break the contract.

Now, Abraham did not live in a written culture, but an oral storytelling culture.

So in Abraham's day, you agreed by acting out the consequences that you are welcoming to come into your life if you violate your word.

You acted out.

Let me give you an example.

Jeremiah 34, 18 says this, the men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walk between the pieces.

So to make an oath, you don't sign a paper or shake somebody's hand.

You bring an animal, you slay it, you lay it on the ground, you cut it into pieces and you walk between the pieces.

You were publicly declaring, if I don't do everything that I promised to do, may I be cut off, may I be destroyed, may my flesh lay on the ground to feed the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

In other words, you were bound, you acted out the curse.

You were saying, may God May God and my people bring destruction on me if I violate my end of the bargain.

So when Abraham was told to bring all the pieces, he doesn't question because he knows exactly what's going on.

It's a covenant ratification ceremony.

God is about to enter into a contract with Abraham.

But as strange as that was, there's no way Abraham could have predicted what happened next.

Genesis 15 verse 16, as the sun was setting.

Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.

Now here's what's astonishing.

Blazing torch, smoking pot.

These are the same words used to describe what happened At the top of Mount Sinai, when God came down to give Moses the Ten Commandments, we see the same type of thing in the pillar of God's presence in the cloud by day and fire by night, because these symbols represent the Shekinah glory of God, the overwhelming presence of God among the people.

So when the pot shows up and walks between the pieces, It's not just the presence of God that would have astonished Abraham.

It's what the presence did.

Verse 17, it passed between the pieces.

Folks, listen, this is the gospel.

It is unlike any other faith or religious system.

There are always two problems associated with a person who wants to live a life where joy is central, sorrow only peripheral, where they can possess A mind-boggling confidence when things are falling apart all around them.

There are two problems.

Here's the first problem.

How can I know about God?

How can I trust God that He's involved in all this?

How do I know God's going to come through for me?

How can I be sure that He'll do what He's promised to do?

And God's answer to Abraham and to us is this.

I will walk between the pieces.

I will make a covenant with you.

I promise to bless you, Abraham, to bring salvation to your house, to give you what your heart most desires.

and God actually says to Abraham as he does to us, I promise you, you will rise again.

I promise you, you will come into the kingdom.

I promise you by the blood of my son, Jesus, you will be saved.

And God says to Abraham and to you, if I don't do what I promised, this is what God does by walking between the pieces.

God is saying, God is saying, may I be cut into pieces.

May I be cut off from the land of the living.

May my immutability, my unchanging nature, experience mutation.

May my immortality suffer mortality.

May my infinity suffer finitude.

May my body be bruised, torn, pierced, and destroyed.

Abraham would have thought, wow, this is God we're talking about.

God is making a covenant.

But Abraham is like us, and he knows that the real issue was never about God.

Down deep inside, he knows God will come through.

The real issue is I'm not sure I'll come through.

And that's the second question.

How do I know about me?

I know about God.

How do I know about me?

You've given me these promises, but I'm not sure I won't do something stupid to mess it all up.

I know me.

I'm prone to wonder.

I'm prone to stray from the...

the beaten path.

I often get weak.

I don't trust me.

And I'm afraid you'll grow weary of my promises to you, God.

How many times will you forgive me for telling you I'm never going to do that again?

And yet I do it again and again.

God, you said that you will be my God and I will be your people.

I don't doubt that you will be my God.

I'm just not so sure I'm going to be your people.

I'm afraid I'm going to get to the end of time and I'm going to stand before you and you're going to look at me and say, really?

After everything you've done, you want me to keep my covenant and promises when it's been the habit of your life to break your promise and commitment to me again and again and again?

How do I know about you?

You've passed between the pieces, but how do I know about me?

That's the real issue.

Now, this is why this event in Genesis 15 and the promise of God in Hebrews 6.

It's so important.

When God walked between the pieces, did you notice he walked alone?

He didn't look to Abraham and say, okay, Abraham, now it's your turn.

This is unheard of.

Historically speaking, when a king entered into a covenant relationship with a servant, either both would walk through the pieces or just the servant would walk through.

Never would the king alone walk through and make the covenant.

And yet that's what God is doing.

Why?

Because God is saying to Abraham the same thing he says to you and me.

I'm going to walk through the pieces for the both of us.

God says, Abraham, I know you're going to break your promise and your covenant with me.

I know what you're like, but I'm going to walk through the pieces for both of us.

I am going to take upon myself the consequences for both of us.

God is saying to Abraham the same thing he says to you and me.

Abraham, may I be cut off from the land of the living if I don't do my part of the bargain, but Abraham, may I be cut off from the land of the living if you don't do yours.

I'm going to bless you even if it means I have to die, Abraham.

What's the promise?

God will give us a hope and a future.

He will prosper us, guaranteed.

How can we be certain?

God walked between the pieces.

But wait a minute, Jeff.

God made his covenant with Abraham, not me.

Really?

Have you read Isaiah 53?

Let me read it.

For he was cut off from the land of the living.

For the transgression of my people, he was punished.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth, yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer.

And though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days.

And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

Who was Jesus?

Emmanuel, God with us, God in the flesh.

God was cut off from the land of the living.

The impossible became possible.

His immortality did become mortality.

His immutability did suffer mutation.

God died.

God was cut off from the land of the living.

Trampled in the dust, darkness came over the land.

Do you realize that in Christ, God kept your part of the covenant?

Now, let me, there's nothing else like this.

Now, let me apply this quickly in a few minutes here.

Most of our problems in our life stem because we really don't trust the promises of God or we don't trust our own.

Because somehow we're convinced that all centers around us, between our righteousness rather than the righteousness of God.

So we are angry and bitter because we don't trust that God's justice will come about.

We don't believe the end of the tape that one day justice is going to roll like a river.

That's why we're so angry.

That's why we're so bitter.

We hate ourselves and are riddled with low self-esteem because we don't trust that His love and His grace are new for us every day.

And that when we sin, His mercies are new every day and God doesn't love us any less or any more.

We disobey.

Because we don't trust his wisdom.

The prevalent sexual sins in our culture have everything to do with the reality that we think we know better than God how we should be living our lives.

And the ultimate thing there is you disobey because you don't trust the wisdom of God.

You trust your own wisdom.

And you typically base your sense of right and wrong on your feelings rather than the objective word of God.

So you say to yourself, I better do what I think makes me happy because I think if I trust God's way, I'll somehow miss out.

I simply don't trust his word.

We are frustrated with our loneliness because we don't truly trust God's intimacy.

If we were to draw near to God, We don't really trust that he'll meet the deepest needs of our heart.

Every sense of frustration right under the surface has to do with you trusting the promises of God and then moving toward those promises.

But let's identify the real issue here.

The real issue, our anxiety, our fear, our worry, our stress, our doubt, our depression, are all a result of doubting ourselves even more than doubting God.

Because here's what we keep thinking.

We keep thinking, perhaps the promises of God are true, but I'm certain I'm not good enough to receive them.

I'm certain I've messed up.

I've betrayed him far too many times.

He's been my God, but I've not always been his people.

I've probably ruined everything.

I hope I haven't, but what guarantees do I really have?

Here's the guarantee that you have.

He walked between the pieces.

When God walked between the pieces, here's what he's saying to Abraham and to you and me.

You know me.

I keep my promises.

Now learn something about yourself, Jeff.

You will break the covenant.

There'll be times you will be prone to wonder.

You will often fail to measure up.

This is not going to surprise me.

But I walked through the pieces on your behalf and I suffered the penalty for your sin so that you don't have to.

And my promises to you are based on my steadfastness and faithfulness, not yours.

If we were in an African-American church, I'd have gotten 100 amens just now.

We're far too white for something like that.

God says, I knew you would doubt.

I knew you would falter, Pastor Jeff.

I knew you would wander away sometimes, but I turned my face away from my son so I would never have to turn my face away from you.

Now, I know what happens when I say something like this.

The self-righteous police in the audience, they're going to say, well, Pastor Jeff, if what you're saying is true, can't I just go live any way I want?

After all, if God's promises have nothing to do with me, then why make any effort at all to live for Christ?

And here's your answer.

If you're still asking that question, you've not met Jesus, and you've not entered into the covenant.

When you meet the real Jesus, his heart becomes yours.

And if you can violate Jesus' words without guilt and shame, you may be religious, thinking you can participate in some rituals and you'll be absolved, but you're not yet Christian, where his heart becomes your heart.

Paul said, I've been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

You love the word of God because Jesus loves the word of God and a genuine Christ follower is not perfect.

He's not, but he wants to be.

He follows his savior.

He obeys the commandments to the best of his ability, even though he will fail many times, he keeps pressing forward, forgetting what lies behind.

The example I've used all my life is the tightrope.

You walk out and the tightrope represents righteousness.

And all of us are trying to live.

We're trying to live a righteous life.

But underneath is the safety net of grace.

And no matter how many times you fall, the net catches you.

The problem with some of us, though, we don't even try to walk the tightrope.

We just go, whee Jump right into the net.

And the person who does that has not yet fallen in love with Jesus yet.

That's all it is.

You know, when I was 16 years old, I had a great relationship with my father, but I did something when I was 16 that I've mentioned many times in this church over the last 16 years, and I've still not told you, and I never will.

But I did something.

And you know what?

I thought my father would truly kick me out of the house.

He showed me grace.

But the reason I never did that thing again, because I realized it broke my father's heart.

See, as long as you treat your relationship with God like a slave and a master, well, a slave, if he's the wrong kind of master, only does things to please the master, not because he loves the master.

But if you learn who God is, your Abba Father, the Father that loves you, and you realize that when you stray away, it wounds his heart, I'm telling you, that'll change you.

You know, the Apostle Paul in Romans 6 said, What shall we say then?

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound?

And he says, No way.

We are those who have died to sin.

How can we live in it any longer?

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Here's what Paul says.

You can't be both alive in Christ and alive to sin.

If you're alive in Christ, you're dead to sin.

Now, what does that mean?

Because if you're like me, you're thinking, I wish I was dead to sin, but I got news for you.

Sin is alive and well.

Well, when a father says to a son, you are dead to me, what does that mean?

The father is saying, I wish to live apart from you.

I wish to live as though you do not exist.

A Christ follower is dead to sin in the sense that he really wishes to live apart from sin.

He's dead to sin and sin is dead to him.

He lives, he chooses to live as though sin has no real presence in his life.

Does he stumble?

Yes.

But the intention of his will is to die to sin.

Now, how does all that, since a Christ follower knows that God has forgiven past, present, future sin, how does the certainty of God's promise anchor us?

How does it anchor us?

Well, it anchors us.

And the fact of the matter is, there are many in the room right now, the reason there's this underlying sense of frustration and anger, and I mean, you're just irritable all the time.

Let me tell you why.

Even though you're not dealing with it and you're suppressing it, underneath you know that your anchor just isn't working.

So if you put all your hope and confidence in how much money you make, your soul knows that no matter how much money you have, it could all come crashing down.

No matter how good looking you are, you're going to get older.

You're going to age.

You're going to end up like this.

This was so much better 30 years ago.

But, yeah, it's going to happen.

Why do you think people, if you notice people in Hollywood that were gorgeous disappear later on.

They don't want to be seen in public because it's a destroy, a destruction of identity.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting that.

money.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting to take care of yourself.

I'm not saying that, but if that's what your anchor is in, if the anchor of your soul and the confidence and security of your life are in those things, even though you try to suppress it, down deep inside, your soul knows all of it's going to end one day.

So you live with the overarching truth, you're going to die.

That's us.

But there are some of you, your anchor's in the right thing, but it doesn't go down deep enough.

And you struggle between religion and Christianity, because when the anger gets deep enough, then you know, you know what?

God's love for me is unconditional.

God walked between the pieces.

He was cut off from the land of the living.

He kept my end of the covenant for me, so that I can be assured that on the day that I die, my real life begins.

The real life begins then.

And down deep inside, every single one of you, you know this is true.

You've been fighting it, you've been suppressing it, but you know there's a creator.

And you know there's a connection.

And you know there's reason and significance and meaning attached to your life.

So, a lot of you are going to be baptized tonight.

Baptism, listen now, do you know what it is?

Oh, it's where you enter into the covenant.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's what happens.

You go down.

And you're saying to God, you're saying, God, I'm dying in my old way of trying to be religious and thinking somehow I can be good enough.

I'm dying to that.

And when you come out of the water, you are raised to walk in a newness of life.

You're no longer bound by law.

You're now under grace.

And under grace means that when you sin, God already paid the penalty.

He walked between the pieces.

So if you've never been baptized, Woo I don't know why you would not want to enter into a covenant like this.

There is no covenant like this, man, where he did for you what you could not do for yourself.

Father, thank you for the power of the passage in Genesis 15 to remind us that we cannot save ourselves.

And I pray that the Holy Spirit would descend on this place right now.

Clarity would come, that we would recognize there's no righteous people in this room, on this stage.

We're all sinners saved by the grace and the mercy of a God who would walk between the pieces and pay the penalty our sin deserves.

So I pray for those coming.

I pray for celebration in these next 10, 15 minutes.

And I pray for those who have not yet entered into covenant.

This would be the night.

This would be the weekend.

This would be the day.

In Christ's name, everybody said, amen.