People of Promise / Week 1

Introduction What in the World is God Doing?

Genesis 1-3, Revelation 19-22 September 11, 2022

I.Introduction:

A. This morning starts our fall series we are calling people of

promise! It will answer the question What in the word is God

doing?

1. We will answer that question not out of the context of

frustration because we cannot understand it,

2. But out of the context of a sure hope that we can have as

an anchor for our souls during the most difficult times of

our lives and world!

B. I can honestly say that this series was born in my heart back

in the spring of 1985, my last semester of seminary, when I was

taking a class from Doctor Dwight Pentecost called the biblical

covenants.

1. I went into that class having no idea what a covenant was

and also after three years of bible college and four and one

half years of seminary I had learned literally hundreds

upon hundreds of verses and truths but had no idea of how

they fit together or even more so flow together into a unit

forming the big story of what God is doing in this world.

2. I left that class looking at God and the Bible totally

differently

C. We are calling it people of promise because

1. A covenant is the means by which God has bound himself

to do the things he has promised!

2. In the covenants God’s big overarching plan by means of

promises are revealed

3. The better we understand the ultimate story of what God is

doing, then the better we understand our own lives and

times we live in!

D. Many people shy away from the Old Testament because they

either feel it does not apply to us today or they are so lost in it they

cannot figure out what is going on.

1. By the end of this series, you will be equipped with the

knowledge to go into the Old Testament with confidence

regarding what is going on there and recognizing it really

is the foundation to the New Testament. Thus, you will

not only better understand the Old Testament but the New

Testament as well.

2. Prophecy is simply what God has told us he will do in the

future! When it comes to the end times people try to piece

together hundreds of verses in the Old and New Testament

so it can make sense to them.

a. We will learn in this series that the hundreds of

verses on prophecy are simply the ways God is going

to fulfill his covenant promises that he made to Israel

which we join into through Jesus!

b. We will see that the prophecies have their roots in

the covenants so when the covenants make sense to us

then the prophecies will make sense to us!

c. Hopefully it will be like taking a 1,000-piece

puzzle and turning into about a 20-piece puzzle

E. So why a series on the covenants? - listen to these men

who recently went through this material as a test drive for this

series tell us how it impacted them:

• Let’s jump right in

II. The nature of a story

A. Structure of a story-

1. Put up image

a. Setting– introduction to the scene and characters –

e.g., “once upon a time…”

b. Incident – something happens that needs to be

resolved

c. Plot – a series of events that unfold as they try to

resolve the incident

d. Climax – the key event that resolves the incident

e. Outcome – tension decreases, and the incident is

resolved or explained

f. Resolution – learn something new or a new

way of carrying on from here. “And they lived happily

ever after…”

B. Are you following me now? Well, God’s story as

revealed in the Bible story works the same way

1. Structure of the Bible story image

2. Explain image

• Let me try to

III. Spaceship view of the story

A. I believe the story is driven by three key words – seed,

covenant, Jesus.

1. Next week we will learn more about the seed which

speaks either of a family line of people or a certain person

from that line

2. The following week and weeks to come we will learn

more about the covenants – a covenant is the means by

which God binds himself to do the promises he makes!

B. We learn a lot about a story by looking at the start of the

story and the end of a story. In the Bible

1. Start - setting – God creates a perfect heaven and earth,

and mankind (male and female) where he dwells with

them in paradise, and they are to reign over all his

creation. There is peace/shalom between God and man,

peace within man himself, peace between man and

woman, and peace with mankind and the earth. Paradise

has no: sin, Satan, curse or death Genesis 1-2

2. End - resolution – God creates a perfect new heaven and

earth where he dwells with man who reigns forever and

ever over all his new creation. There will be peace/shalom

between God and man, peace within man himself, peace

between man and woman, and peace with mankind and the

new earth. Paradise has no: sin, Satan, curse or

death Revelation 21-22

C. My statement, the PBP statement of what God is doing in this

world is a story of redemption: God glorifying himself through

Jesus, the seed, by restoring his original plan for mankind and the

earth where God himself reigns forever as king over a people who

love him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.

1. Or simply “God’s redemption of man through Jesus

Christ!”

2. Or as one brother (Mike) said just a few weeks to me

“paradise restored!”

• Let’s get a little closer in an airplane view 30,000 ft above.

IV. Airplane view of the story –

A. Just listen and I would encourage you to download the

notes as this is literally decades of study squeezed into just a

few paragraphs with many bible references to support

it. (thank - Joel Brassfield for his contributions to this)

B. The setting (paradise) – God dwelling with man as man

reigns over his creation and there is perfect shalom/peace and

no sin sin, Satan, curse or death. Genesis 1-2

C. Incident or conflict (the fall & the seed promise) –

Satan deceived the woman and they fell into sin (fall), as a

result sin entered into the world (Romans 5:12). Man became

separated from God as he died spiritually and God put a curse

upon Satan, woman, man and the world. Satan became the

god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). There would be

hostility between “thy seed,” ungodly line and “her seed,” the

godly line. There would also be hostility between Jesus, the

seed, and Satan until the seed/Messiah/Jesus Christ comes and

crushes Satan. (Genesis 3:15)

D. Plot (the whole “I will…” section with covenants) - man

struggles with sin, Satan and the curse on every page of the

Bible from Genesis 3 until Revelation 21

1. God develops the godly line/seed of the woman through

Able, Seth, Noah and Shem to Abraham and the ungodly

line through Cain, Ham & Japheth from whom come the

nations that were in conflict/hostility with Israel

throughout the Old Testament.

2. God made a covenant with Abraham where he promised

Abraham - a land, seed (i.e., a nation), blessing and that

God would be their god. The seed is now further defined.

It first broadly applied to Eve’s godly offspring, but now it

is narrowed down to being from the line of Abraham, and

that it would be both a collective people (Israel –

Genesis12:2, 22:17) and a specific person (Jesus – Genesis

22:18, Galatians 3:16) through whom all the nations of the

world would be blessed (Romans 4:11-17, Galatians 3:8-

9,14).

3. God gave Israel the Mosaic Covenant to regulate Israel’s

relationship with God until the seed comes (Galatians

3:19). Obey God and you will be blessed (lev 26:3-13),

disobey him and you will be disciplined/cursed (Leviticus

26:14-33). Because of Israel’s continued disobedience to

the Mosaic Law the Old Testament is a story of Israel’s

repeatedly being disciplined and repenting and ultimately

being deported from their own land (Leviticus 26:27-39,

Deuteronomy 28:64-68; 29:24-28). The prophets

repeatedly use the Mosaic Covenant to point out their sin

and call them to repentance so they can be restored to

God’s promised blessings (2 Kings 17:13-15, 23)!

4. Deuteronomy/land covenant – guarantees that Israel

eventually will repent, be regenerated and restored to the

land in blessing.

5. God makes a covenant with David where he–promises that

the seed will come from his line and will be a forever king

who will rule forever over a forever kingdom. We then see

a line of mostly failed kingships from David’s line as the

nation waits for the promised king who would be the seed

of David.

6. In the Old Testament, God foretold of a new covenant

with Israel – where he promises to forgive Israel, give

them a new heart, place his Spirit in them to cause them to

walk in obedience (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:24-27)

and bless them in the land (Ezekiel 36:28-38,

Deuteronomy 30:1-10) as the Davidic seed rules over

them (Luke 1:33) and all the world (Zechariah 9:9-10,

14:9, Ephesians 1:20-21).

E. Climax (Jesus the seed)– in Matthew 1:1, the New Testament

starts by telling us that Jesus was the seed, the Christ, the

Messiah, the seed who came from the line of David and

Abraham and gives a genealogy to prove it. Jesus proclaims

he is the seed of David, the King, the Messiah/Christ and he

proves it by performing the kind of miracles that the Christ

will perform in his kingdom. He lives a perfect sinless life,

and dies (in our place) to pay for our sins, he is raised from

the dead to give us a brand new eternal righteous life, then

ascends to heaven to sit at the right hand of God until he

comes back to fulfill all the promises the Old Testament

prophets made about the period of restoration. (Acts 3:19-

21)

F. Outcome (church through millennium) – sin, Satan, the curse

and death are still present, but the back of their power is broken.

1. The church is born made up of all nations, both Jew and

Gentiles who believe in Jesus (Ephesians 2:11-22). Their

sins are forgiven, they receive a new heart and the Holy

Spirit dwells inside of every believer. They are now God’s

people through whom he works his purposes out on earth

(Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8, 2nd Corinthians 5:18-20).

2. Believers are in Christ (1st Corinthians 1:30), the seed, and

now are Abraham’s seed who partake in the covenants of

promise made to Israel (Ephesians 2:12-19 - spiritual

blessings now and material blessings later when Jesus

returns) based upon a faith like Abraham’s (Romans 4:11-

17) and their relationship with Jesus, the seed, to whom

the promises were also spoken. (Galatians 3:16, 29)

3. Believers will be raptured out of this world as God

disciplines unbelieving Israel and judges the nations for a

seven-year period. (Jacob’s trouble, tribulation)

4. Satan makes war with the Lamb and his saints at the end

of this time as all the world is gathered together against

Israel (Zechariah 14:2, 12:3-9, Revelation16:13-16; 17:12-

14)

5. Jesus returns and defeats Satan and binds him for 1,000

years (Revelation 19:19-21, 20:2-3) while he sets up a

kingdom here on earth (Revelation 20:4-5) to fulfill his

covenant promises with Israel and all the Old Testament

prophecies about the period of restoration. (Acts 3:19-21)

6. At the end of that kingdom Satan will be loosed

(Revelation 20:7) one more time to spear head one final

war where he will be defeated and thrown into the lake of

fire (Revelation 20:10). Thus, the seed of woman crushed

the head of Satan!

7. The present heaven and earth are destroyed by fire at the

presence of the great white throne (Revelation 20:11, 2

Peter 3:7-10)

8. Great white throne judgment – anyone’s name not written

in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

(Revelation 20:15).

G. Resolution (paradise restored) - then we are back to the new

normal, where God creates a new heaven and earth! “Paradise

restored!” God dwelling with man as man reigns over his new

creation and there is perfect shalom/peace and no sin, Satan, curse

or death. Revelation 21-22

V. Closing

A. Josh and Joel will close us up by letting us know of some of

the opportunities that we have to make this series even more

beneficial for us!