November 27, First Sunday of Advent, Hanging of the Greens

Lesson: Genesis 3.14-15

Sermon Title: Promise

(Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

INTRODUCTION:

  1. The 1927 commercial

    1. "Promise her anything, but give her Arpege"

    2. Arpege commercial perfume for women created in 1927 by Jeanne Lanvin.

    3. This slogan became an advertising classic as memorable as the scent itself.

  2. Promise him anything, but give him a man's vanity!

    1. Moran's Woodworks, West Barnstable, MA

    2. Men's Vanities

    3. Our men's vanity is handcrafted from American natural cherry. It will help organize change, jewelry, keys, wallet and other small treasures. Each vanity has multiple coats of a hand rubbed oil finish and is meant to be functional as well as beautiful.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

MAIN BODY:

  1. We humans make a lot of promises

    1. Presidential Oath.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

    1. Congressional promises

I, Loyal Citizen of the Republic, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

    1. When individuals become members of a Congregational Church he/she makes a promise to accept, uphold and fulfill the intent of our Covenant

    2. A man and a woman being married promise

      1. "to take one another to be my wedded husband/wife, to have an to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and accordingly I pledge you my faith."

      2. In some cases it is until death do us part or I find someone else.

  1. What about God's promises?

    1. In an article The Word: Standing on Promises by Kathleen Norris writes: (1). "Christian Century," November 29, 2005, p 21. (Quotations/Citations)

"It is hard to believe what we hear, that we are a blessed people, standing in God's favor.

"Hard to believe that God will bring righteousness to our world, as mysteriously and yet naturally as a seed sprouts and grows out of the earth.

"We know it is foolish to put stock in such promises, when we have devastated God's creation with war and willful misuse.

"For centuries we have turned good topsoil into barren dust.

"We have poisoned the earth and its waters so badly that what grows there is often damaged and unfit to eat.

'Pie in the sky.

'To believe in a promise requires a level of trust that is increasingly hard to come by.

"These days, the very words that would engender and foster our trust have been stripped of meaning.

"High-sounding mission statements do not prevent corporate bosses from routinely betraying their employees, retirees and prime stockholders.

"The powerful words of scripture have not prevented clergy from abusing the trust of parishioners and their children.

"And ordinary words in the mouths of politicians have become weapons against trust itself, betraying anyone who hasn't amassed enough wealth and power to insure against betrayal.

      1. His oath of office did not inhibit Richard Nixon from being embroiled in Watergate and forced to resign.

      2. His oath of office did not prevent Dan Rostenkowski, Congressman from Illinois political career to be shattered when in 1994, he was indicted on corruption charges and was forced to step down from all Congressional leadership positions. In elections later that year, Rostenkowski lost his seat and began retirement. In 1996, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud. He was fined and was sentenced to 17 months in prison, of which he served 15. Rostenkowski was pardoned in 2000 by US President Bill Clinton.

Tom DeLay is under investigation for alleged fraudulent financial practices.

      1. I am a always amazed by the way our Covenant is treated.

        1. We agree to be a part of something vital, necessary and life-giving.

        2. We so often treat it so causally.

    1. "...Thomas Merton once stated, people have grown so weary they "don't want to hear any more words"? (2)

      1. ...Merton warned us about what can happen when "all words have become alike."

      2. It means that we can no longer presume that even our most sacred words still have meaning or value.

      3. ...Merton commented that "these days to say 'God is love' is like saying 'Eat Wheaties.'"

      4. Norris continues: "And all too often we act as if that is true, and the body of Christ is just another marketing tool, useful to ideologues but having little place for poets, let alone prophets.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    1. So what about the promises of God?

      1. As the writer of the book of Hebrews observes in the great chapter on faith:

    6And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him, Hebrews 11:6 (NRSVA)

      1. Does God give sufficient evidence to believe?

      1. The lesson for today is Genesis 3.14-15

        1. Is this a promise?

          1. Is there enmity between the serpent and the woman?

          2. Is there enmity between your offspring and hers?

          3. Did the woman's offspring strike the serpent's head?

          4. Did the serpent strike the offspring's heel?

        2. Has the promise been fulfilled.

          1. Did not Jesus defeat Satan during his period of temptation? (Luke 4)

          2. Did he not say that he saw Satan, like lightening, fall from heaven? (Luke 10.18)

          3. Did he not heal a woman of whom it was said by Jesus that Satan had bound her for 18 long years? (Luke 13.16)

          4. Jesus defeated the "ruler of this world."

    30Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out, (John 12:30-31, NRSVA).

    30I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; 31but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way, (John 14:30-31, NRSVA).

    8And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; 11about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned, (John 16:8-11, NRSVA).

          1. It only waits the final denouement.

    1. We can fully trust in God's promises

      1. Not one of God's promises have ever failed.

      2. If the promise fails, it is not God's fault, but our own.

    2. Promises lightly made seldom endure.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    CONCLUSION

    1. What has God promised?

    WHAT HAS GOD PROMISED (3)

God has not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways, all our lives through.
God has not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God has promised strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer, light on the way;
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

    1. David F. Wells in, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams highlights with great clarity the meaning and purpose of God's promises. (4)

    The fact is, of course, that the New Testament never promises anyone a life of psychological wholeness or offers a guarantee of the consumer's satisfaction with Christ. To the contrary, it offers the prospect of indignities, loss, damage, disease and pain. The faithful in Scripture were scorned, beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked and executed. The gospel offers no promises that contemporary believers will be spared these experiences, that they will be able to settle down to the sanitized comfort of an inner life freed of stresses, pains and ambiguities. It simply promises that through Christ, God will walk with us in all the dark places of life, that he has the power and the will to invest his promises with reality, and that even the shadows are made to serve his glory and our best interests. A therapeutic culture will be inclined to view such promises as something of a disappointment; those who understand that reality is at heart moral because God is centrally holy will be satisfied that this is all they need to know.

    1. Last Thursday evening, I finished the Thanksgiving sermon with words of a song by Mike Murdock found in Richard Roberts' book, He's the God of the Second Chance (Tulsa, Okla.: R. Roberts, 1985), 70:

      1. Let me paraphrase the words of his song to read:

    I won't let go of his promise
    I've fought too hard to believe,
    I've lived through too many storms
    To have what I have received.
    I won't let go of his promise
    I have a dream I still can see,
    Regardless what may ever come my way,
    I won't let go his promise to me.

    Amen!!

    1. The Word: Standing on Promises by Kathleen Norris. "Christian Century," November 29, 2005, p 21. (Quotations/Citations)

    2. Ibid

    3. Attributed to Annie Johnson Flint

    4. David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 112.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)