Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Audio: iTunes | Spotify | Download
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
᛭ INI ᛭
Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus is the God of promises. He fulfills long-standing promises—those promised in the Old Testament. He makes promises even more promises—those promised in the New Testament. He always keeps His promises. As Paul says, “All the promises of God find their Yes in him.” (2 Cor 1:20)
Today, we focusing on some particular promises of Jesus. We need these when someone you love dies, especially when that someone is your husband, your dad, your grandpa, your great-grandpa, cousin, or close friend. We need Jesus’ promises today—you do!: Karen, Mark, Mike, Kristin, Janelle, and Nikki—and everyone else here! We need these because death always “brings sin to remembrance.” (1 Ki 17) For “the sting of death is sin” (1 Cor 15), and “the wages of sin is death.” (Rom 6) Not just of the person we love, but our own sin, our own mortality, our own death.
When Jesus makes promises they aren’t vague, they’re particular. They’re for particular people, even you. They’re made at particular places. They’re even fulfilled and accomplished that way too. He’s not far off when He’s making, keeping, and delivering more promises. To put it simply:
JESUS KEEPS HIS PROMISES IN PARTICULAR PLACES AND PROMISES PARTICULAR PLACES TO HIS PEOPLE, TO YOU.
(I. The particular places Jesus keeps and puts His promises.)
Jesus keeps His promises in particular places by fulfilling them in particular places. That’s why we can actually be thankful that Delmar died during this time of year. Holy week means we’re in the shadow of Jesus’ cross and His empty tomb. Calvary is where Jesus keeps the promises we need Him to keep most. He sheds His blood to pay the wages of our sin. He dies and is buried for our sake to kill death from the inside out. His bodily resurrection is the promise that an empty grave, an empty casket awaits all of us. Even this one!
The Lord also puts promises in particular places, and here we get to some verses I read and preached to Delmar. In Matthew 28 the resurrected Jesus promises: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go and make disciples of all nations, by baptizing them and by teaching them to [keep] all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The risen Lord wants all nations baptized taught to cherish His Word because He makes promises at Baptism and in His Word.
What I told Delmar, I’ll tell you, too. You’re baptized; so, He’s with you. He’s got your back. Come hell or high water, doesn’t matter if it’s sin, Satan, sickness, or death, “I am with you always.” At Cambridge, in the hospital, at a funeral, at a graveside—“I am with you always.” “Nothing can separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8) Jesus puts it this way in John 10: “Nothing can snatch them out of My hand.” (Jn 10) Why? Because they’re baptized. As nothing can undo Jesus’ cross and empty tomb, so also your baptism and Jesus’ promise: “I am with you always.”
So we keep, we cherish, His word. As Christ says in John 14:23, Delmar’s confirmation verse: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” We cherish His baptismal word. We cherish all His promises. “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me, and they will never perish.” Such is the promise of Baptism. The Lord, who speaks these promises, keeps them. That’s how He uses “all authority in heaven and on earth.” He uses it for your benefit, for Delmar’s benefit, to keep, to save, to raise from the dead, to give eternal life.
(Transition.)
JESUS KEEPS HIS PROMISES IN PARTICULAR PLACES.
Jesus is the God of promises. He always keeps His promises. He kept them at His cross and empty tomb. He makes even more them at Baptism and His Supper. His cross and empty tomb show He will also keep those promises. Yes,
“I am with you always until the end of the age.” Even past the end of the age. Actually, not past the end of the age! Only until the end of the age is Jesus with you because, once the end of the age comes, that particular promise gets flipped around. No longer will it be “I am with you always” but rather “You will be with Me always.” For Jesus not only
KEEPS HIS PROMISES IN PARTICULAR PLACES, [BUT] HE ALSO PROMISES PARTICULAR PLACES TO HIS PEOPLE, TO YOU.
(II. The particular places Jesus promises to His people.)
He promises particular places to His people, specifically that they might “dwell in the house of the Lord,” His house, His temple, His palace “forever.” (Ps 23) Yes, Jesus promises eternal life. “I give them eternal life and they will never perish.” But it’s also an eternal life somewhere. Where He is and will be, even in the new heavens and earth.
And so Jesus continues to promise in John 14:23: “We will come to him and make our home with him.” Which is why Jesus promises earlier in John 14: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Paul also comforts us: “I desire to depart and be with Christ.” Those who depart with faith in Christ, dwell with Christ. For “who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Ps 24) We all “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” What Christ has done for us at Calvary and our Baptism.
We also heard this promise in revelation as well. The promise for anyone thus washed, thus cleansed, who comes out of the great tribulation of life: “They are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.” (NIV)
(Conclusion.)
Christ promises: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” It must be so, for Jesus also says, “Where I am there My servant will be also.” (Jn 12)
He makes this promise and keeps this promise. We know He keeps promises because of Holy Week: His suffering, cross, death, and burial. We know this because of Easter, too: He rises from the dead.
The risen Jesus keeps this promise for Delmar, and for you. Not only His death, but Your Baptism says so. Because
JESUS KEEPS HIS PROMISES IN PARTICULAR PLACES AND PROMISES PARTICULAR PLACES TO HIS PEOPLE, TO YOU.
He gives eternal life. Resurrected life with Him, with His Father, and with the Spirit, too. “In your flesh you will see your redeemer, you will see God.” (Job 19) You will serve Him, be with Him, day and night forever in His temple. That’s the place He’s promised to all His people, to Delmar, and to you, too.
Gracious Mercy Blog 