Richard Davenport December 2, 2018 Advent 1 Text: Jeremiah 33:14-18 (NIV) Campaign Promises 14 The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it [a] will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior. 17 For this is what the Lord says: David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel, 18 nor will the Levitical priests ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices. Footnotes: a. Jeremiah 33:16 Or he Last month, and for a month or so before that, the campaign promises were everywhere. It s not as bad as a presidential election, but you still can t seem to avoid being inundated with mail and phone calls from the various political groups trying to get you to vote for someone or other. All of them tell you about the good points of their candidate and bad points of the other guy and they tell you what their guy promises to do and how the other guy will fail. I suspect, back in the early days of American democracy, there was a lot of optimism when it came to election time. The revolutionaries had put in a lot of blood and sweat to have the ability to vote for their leaders. Election time made that all worthwhile. Sure, there were disagreements between the various groups, but it was still an exciting thing for American citizens. Those running for office weren t career politicians. They were scholars, merchants, and other intelligent men who spent a lot of time studying sociology and the philosophy of
government. The citizens put a lot of faith in them to do what s best for the country. After all, those same people running for office had been part of the fight. When they made promises as part of their campaign, I m sure people trusted them to do their best to carry out the promises they made. Nowadays, I think people consider campaign promises a big joke. Politicians just tell people what they want to hear so they can get elected. People still believe the promises, or at least hope this time they will actually follow through this time. Every election time means more promises and more people hoping this time will be different than all the rest. Promises aren t something I m really great at. As much as I will try and follow through on things, I realize there are circumstances beyond my control that might prevent me from doing what I said. I also know I m a sinner and sometimes I say something and it just doesn t happen. I try not to make promises very often, since I know it may just come back to bite me. I promised to love my wife every day until the day I die and I don t always do that very well. In some cultures, like those in the Far East, where personal honor is of paramount importance, failing to keep a promise can have serious consequences. We have contracts, which are basically legally binding promises, and failing to keep those will mean consequences as well. In either case, that doesn t stop people from failing to keep them. Whether the result is intentional or not, it happens pretty regularly. It s very upsetting when someone doesn t follow through on what they said they were going to do. This was all supposed to be handled and now it s not. That leaves you to pick up the slack. You aren t likely to trust someone who let you down like that, especially if it keeps happening. You find yourself slowly coming to the conclusion everyone is like that. Everyone will make any kind of promise they need if it will get them what they want, as many believe politicians do. Everyone s just out for themselves and doesn t care about anything else. If I can just tell you I ll do something to get you to do what I want, then it doesn t really matter whether I follow through or not. I ve already got what I was after. You can get mad about it, but it s already too late. Having someone bail on a promise they made isn t much fun, but it s probably better than dealing with someone who keeps promising to do something but never gets around to
actually doing it. At some point it becomes pretty obvious they re never going to follow through. You don t even want to talk about it anymore because you know it s just a big waste of time. Talk, talk, talk. It s all they ever do. Never any results. They cover up their failure with good intentions but, at some point, it starts to work against them. You start to doubt everything they say. Politicians take an oath of office. They promise to carry out the duties of their office with integrity and honesty. They promise to do what the job requires. When they fail to do so, everything else they ve done becomes suspect. Former president Richard Nixon knew a thing or two about this. After successfully winning his first term in office, he completed his four years and was up for reelection. If he had done a bad job, the voters could have rejected him. But they didn t. He did well enough that people were willing to give him another term. Then comes the Watergate scandal. It turned out that his office was involved in some pretty underhanded dealings. He had broken his promise beyond repair. Anything he said now would fall on deaf ears. The promise he made in his oath of office was that important. He couldn t be allowed to continue and he knew ability to function as president was done. He had to resign. Promises fill the pages of Scripture too. They sound a lot like a political campaign. It sounds a lot like God is competing against other gods for the chance to actually be your god. If he doesn t tell you what you want, you probably aren t going to listen to him and will find someone else who at least tells you what you want to hear. The God who calls himself the creator of all things has a lot stacked against him. He s made a lot of promises and he s made them for a long time. Many of them don t look any closer to being fulfilled now than when he made them. He did promise Jesus, way back at the beginning and he did some pretty cool things. But, look how long it took him to do that. Some 3 or 4 thousand years, probably more. And what has Jesus done that really matters to you right now? He healed some people. So where is he now when you fall and break a hip? Where is he when you have a heart attack or when cancer invades? Seems like the people who lived around 30 AD in Judea were the only ones to benefit from this particular promise. Jesus comforted people too and helped them make it through the day. So where is he now when your marriage is falling apart? Where is he when
you can t pay your bills? There are even a few people who died while they were still fairly young and Jesus brought them back. Where is he now when children are dying? Where is he when your loved ones are dying before their time? It s so easy to compare God with a politician or anyone else who makes a lot of promises. Their worth is based on how well they follow through. After a while, promises start to wear thin and become meaningless. God promises to care for you, to protect you, to keep you safe, and that s just the small stuff. There s so much evil in the world that it seems a little strange God hasn t dealt with them. After all, he promises to put Satan in his place. He promises to do away with sin and death. Yet all of those things are still afflicting us. All of those promises end up getting taken with a grain of salt because they just don t seem to be worth much. We hear God s promises and think to ourselves, That s nice of you to say, God, but let me know when you want to do something that actually helps me out. You hear his promises again on Sunday and any other time you hear the words of Scripture, but they don t mean much. I ve heard it all before, Lord. When are you going to stop talking and do something? The Old Testament reading for today is all about promises. God recalls a promise he made. There will always be a descendent of David on the throne of Israel. It sounds great, but it hasn t happened yet. David had been gone for a long time now and a return to the days of King David s reign didn t look possible. Those who were still holding on to that promise were still hopeful, but most of the country was pagan. The Assyrians had already wiped out the northern kingdom and the Babylonians were now running all over the place. Could God return them to the kind of peace and prosperity they had under King David and Solomon? Well, sure. He had done it once. But that was a long time ago. Life for God s faithful hasn t been so good since then. It hasn t been good for a long time. All of that will change, however. Things will be tough for a while, but there s much more to come. The disaster that falls on the Israelites isn t to punish the faithful or destroy, but to cleanse and protect. The people had become infected with a disease, so, harsh as it appeared, God was fulfilling his promise to keep his people safe. Like driving through a long tunnel, you can feel surrounded by the darkness, but for God
the bright end is always in sight. The Old Testament could be summed up as God laying the foundation for his promises. He made many promises and fulfilled them. He promises Abraham and Sarah would have a son. He promises Noah would survive the flood. He promised the Israelites would be safe from the plagues and that they d settle in a land of their own. He promised David he would be king and that his son, Solomon, would be king after him. He kept each one. So, the promise of a savior, though it was a long time coming, was never something to doubt. The author of Hebrews says this: For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. God can t forego his promise without sacrificing who he is. Advent joins us again to that time of waiting. The promise hangs out there, as yet unfulfilled, but it is coming. The Father is busy setting the stage for the arrival of his Son, in fulfillment of a promise to makes to the whole world, a promise that will change the entire world. The Son s arrival means the time of sin, death, and Satan are coming to an end. Every other promise he makes to you is bound up in this moment. Without Christ, nothing else matters because you are lost. With Christ, nothing else matter because you are saved. Having just left the end of the church year behind and embarked once again on a journey through the life of Christ, we will hear again how all of God s promises come true in Christ. He is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. The Father isn t like anyone we might meet here in this world. He isn t fickle or lazy. He isn t careless or selfish. When he makes a promise he binds himself to that work. He fulfills the promise or he is no longer a God worth worshiping. When the prophets spoke of God s promises they would speak in such a way as if the promise had already been fulfilled. God s promise is that reliable.
When you hear the promise of Advent, the promise of a coming savior who will wipe away all sins and who will bring eternal life to his people, then see again how doubt has no place here. Pray to God for forgiveness, knowing he has promised to forgive. Then pray for the strength to resist the temptation to doubt. Pray for the wisdom to see how the promises of sinful man can never compare with God s because ours are flawed and subject to failure but his is not. Hear again how is plan to care for you goes beyond the moment and ensures your eternal life. Advent isn t just the story of Jesus, the promised savior, coming into the world. It s the story of the promised savior coming for you. God makes this promise to you personally and he wants you to know it s fulfilled. Jesus has crushed the power of death and wiped away the stain of sin. The sorrow and struggles we face here are part of the sinful world and Jesus is bringing that to an end too, for you. So rest in confidence on the promises of God. Long ago, Jeremiah prophesied the coming of the Son of David. We walk through Advent knowing we will hear the story of his coming once more. For the Israelites, a baby will soon be born who will save his people from their sins. For us, a savior will soon return to lead us from death to life. He is coming and has come to save his people. He is coming and has come to save you.