Jesus—the Giver and Fulfiller of Promises

Jesus is the one who gives you promises and fulfills them in your life. I would like you to turn to the second letter of the apostle Peter, chapter 3. Last Sunday we heard that Jesus is the door, and everyone who enters through Him will find salvation, will go in and out, and find pasture to nourish their life; and today we are going to reflect on that Jesus who is the giver and fulfiller of promises in the midst of our lives. Last Sunday we said that He is the door; through Him we enter, and when we enter, we receive promises as well: the promise of salvation, the promise of being able to go in and out, the promise that He is with us in all the affairs of our lives, and also the promise of finding provision for our needs. That is a promise the Lord Jesus gives to those of us who have decided to live in His light, in the light of His principles, in the light of His love.

Second Peter, chapter 3, says: “Knowing this, that in the last days scoffers will come, walking according to their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’ For since the day our fathers fell asleep, everything has remained just as it was from the day of creation. They deliberately ignore the fact that long ago the heavens were made by the Word of God, and the earth also, which came out of water and exists by water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth that now exist are reserved by the same Word, kept for fire on the day of judgment and the destruction of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not overlook this: with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay His promise.” Let me tell you this: the Lord does not delay His promise, “as some consider delay, but is patient toward us, not wanting anyone to perish, but for everyone to come to repentance.”

What a powerful Word that is, huh? A weighty Word, a Word full of hope, yet at the same time a Word filled with a sense of conflict. I began reflecting on this text, my brothers and sisters, because this week two events occurred that made me think and reflect on different things. For one, as Pastor Samuel was rightly saying, the passing of our sister Bertalía Valverde is something that has made me reflect deeply on the Lord’s promises. I believe it was one of the few funeral services I have attended where you could truly feel a sense of peace, because we know that she was a person who lived according to the Lord’s promises and is now enjoying those promises vividly and in full color; and because she is enjoying those promises, we have peace as well.

In contrast to what I am telling you, there is also the event that occurred in Colorado: a young man about to earn his doctorate who, apparently, went a little crazy from studying so much—it loosened a couple of screws and nuts in his head—and the young man decided to bring his own fireworks to a movie theater for the Batman premiere. He took the lives of twelve people and left 70 people injured, not to mention the families who are grieving over what happened; and not only the families, but the entire nation has also been shaken by it.

All of this leads me to think, wow, Lord, look at the times in which we are living. Sometimes you ask, how far will the madness of the world in which we live go? And when you begin to analyze these things that happen and also compare them with the things that happen in your own life—the different things, the different events—you begin to wonder, Lord, how far will all this go? And I imagine that in the minds of some of us, at one time or another, we begin to ask, Lord, what happened to the promises You gave me? I thought that by this stage of the game I would be living the abundant life You promised me, living with a sense of peace that I still am not experiencing. I thought I would see certain promises fulfilled in my children, in my wife, in my neighborhood, and in my church. I thought I would already see those things You promised coming to pass, and they still have not happened.

I do not know whether I am the only one who thinks this way, but I am sure that some of us have thought this way too. That is why I came to this passage. First knowing this: in the last days scoffers will come—and I am not saying that we are scoffers—walking according to their own philosophies and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Where is the promise of the Lord’s coming?” You are always preaching that the Lord Jesus is coming again. That is the greatest promise of our Christian faith: that the Lord will come once more and take His Church, take His bride, and bring us to reign with Him in a heavenly dwelling place. It is the greatest promise we have, my brothers and sisters. Were it not for that promise, I am sure none of us would be here; but it is only because Jesus gave that promise that you and I are where we are today.

But in the world in which we live, there are people who have lost their faith and hope in that promise. We can also put it in the words of Jesus when He speaks about the last days: when all the tribulations that may come in the last days arrive, many will turn away from the faith because they will not be able to withstand the things happening around them; their minds will not be able to comprehend them. And it is very hard, my brothers and sisters, when we have to face this reality. If you and I are here, it is because, one way or another, deep within our being, deep within our heart, there is a tiny seed, a flame of hope that keeps us burning, living, and working. There is a tiny seed—even if it is only the size of a grain of sand—of hope that, each morning when you open your eyes, makes you say, “One more day in which I can see the sunlight”; and that keeps you getting up, finding new strength, and taking hold of things. And that, without a doubt, my brothers and sisters, is something that comes from God.

But even as I say this, I am also aware that there are times when you get up and say, “I want it all to end once and for all. I cannot take so much pressure anymore. I cannot take so much injustice anymore.” And we begin to question, we begin to doubt, we begin to question the people around us, we begin to question and doubt systems, and sometimes we even come to doubt God. We say, “Where is that promise that He said He would move in my life, that He would move His hand and that I would see my family restored? Where is that promise?” From the moment I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night, it is all shouting, shouting, and more shouting; even when people are asleep, they shout at night too—they fight all by themselves in bed at night.

It is very interesting, my brothers and sisters, because in this passage, this concept of scoffers—I began to analyze this—is not necessarily speaking about false prophets, but rather about people who lose their faith in that hope. Look, when a person loses hope, it is because they have lost their trust in something or someone. Look at the chain of events to which that can lead: when someone loses hope, it is because they lost confidence in something or someone that, one way or another, defined their life, gave it meaning, and gave their life direction. They begin to form other ideas that can give their life a new direction and a new meaning, and then they wed themselves to those ideas, and those ideas become their new hope.

But the problem is that, in the world in which we live, when people form a hope that is not based on a solid foundation such as the words and promises of God, at some point, when something happens, that ideology and that philosophy will crumble and collapse. Do you know why? The human being, as all of us know, is a flawed being. Within us lies both the ability to fulfill promises and the ability not to fulfill them; it is within us—we can do either. I really like this passage from Numbers 23 in the Old Testament, verse 19. It says: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. He said, and will He not do it? He spoke, and will He not carry it out?” That Word is key for me in this message I am sharing with you: God is God; we are who we are.

At some point, we have failed to keep a promise we made; and if you have never failed, look, I applaud you—you become an example to me. But if you have failed to keep a promise, you still become an example to me, because you are here, you have not given up, and you are working to continue making things possible.

What promise might we have broken at some point? How many of us as parents have said to our children, “If you do this, I will give you this”? And when the son or daughter—and we tell them, “I will give it to you tomorrow”—the next day arrives, and wow, they are full of hope because Dad or Mom promised them something. The next day arrives: “Where is what you promised me?” “I will give it to you this afternoon.” As husbands and wives, how many marriages, my brothers and sisters, make a vow at the altar, yet as their lives unfold, those promises are damaged by one side or the other? You have a friend, a brother, who promised you, “Look, if you need help, do not worry. I promise I will be there.” And when that friend comes looking for you because you promised, when that person comes in their hour of greatest need and asks you for a favor, you say, “Oh, I cannot. I cannot right now.” And that friend leaves brokenhearted because, in their hour of greatest need, a promise that had been given to them could not be fulfilled.

How many of us have made promises to ourselves? We have made covenants with ourselves: “I will never again say a bad word in my house.” Three days go by, and four of them come out of my mouth in less than ten seconds. We live according to a certain philosophy; we have certain values, and because of those values, for a period of our lives, we say, “No, I am going to live according to these convictions, and nothing and no one will move me from them. That is my foundation, that is my rationale, and that is what I am holding on to.” Then suddenly something happens in your life that calls those convictions into question, and a moment comes when, one way or another, you find yourself forced to break the promise you made because circumstances are compelling you to live contrary to the convictions you held. You yourself break a promise you had made to yourself.

And listen, there is nothing wrong—and look, it is not that I am trying to paint an overly bleak picture, but I simply want to point out different situations in life that we have to face. There is nothing worse than having to deal with someone who has broken promises. I have broken promises; you have broken promises. But that does not mean everything ends there. Look at how wonderful God is: God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Look at how wonderful God is: He can use anything to bring His promises to pass in your life. God’s promises are not broken; He continues fulfilling His promises to you and to your loved ones, and perhaps you will not see them. To God, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years—oh, but that is not fair, because I want to see those promises in my lifetime. I want to see those promises in my lifetime.

Come here, Abraham: did he see his promises fulfilled in his lifetime? Well, he only saw one. He saw the son God promised him, but he did not see the rest. How many years would he have had to live? He would have had to live—ooh, many centuries, rather—to see the fulfillment of the promise God gave him: “Your descendants will be like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea.”

Jesus promised His disciples the Holy Spirit, and it was not until 120-some days after Jesus ascended, while the disciples were praying there in the upper room, that they received the impartation of the Spirit.

And so, my brothers and sisters, the Bible is full of stories of people who lived by promises, and likewise, today we are living by promises. And indeed, this passage I am reading to you speaks about the promise of the Lord’s return. How many of you are waiting for that day? I am waiting for that day. I am waiting for that day, especially after these past two days we spent with the family of our sister Bertalía. There is such a precious verse in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, which says that the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who have been left behind will be—what?—we will be transformed and will meet them in the air. Can you imagine that? Is that not compelling enough for you to have hope that the moment will come when this body, this mind, this deeply flawed soul will be transformed and take on a new image, a new identity? I am waiting for that day.

But in the meantime, it is not as though we are going to become suicidal Christians, “Oh Lord, come, come.” No, that is not it. Look at what verse 9 says: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness, but is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Listen to this: this idea of repentance does not necessarily have to do with your repenting once of all your sins and receiving the Lord Jesus. That is a vital and very important part, but in our daily lives repentance is like a habit, a custom that one has to develop, because one way or another, my brothers and sisters, every day we have to make that turn—we are going in one direction and have to go in another. That is repentance; we have preached it here many times. I know there are preachers who say, “Oh, you have to repent; repenting is like making a 360-degree turn.” No, just 180. With 360, you end up going in the same direction again; with 180, you go in the opposite direction. Just in case you did not know that math.

But the idea of repentance, my brothers and sisters, is that you were living through a series of things in your life, and those things were not bringing you satisfaction. All you saw was frustration after frustration, or vanity after vanity, and those vanities were no longer filling you, and you had to reach a point in your life when you said, “Wait, this is not making sense to me. I have to change, to go in another direction where I can find something that truly fills my entire being.” That is repentance: I am going in one direction, that direction does not work, I meet someone who can indeed give meaning to my life, so I change and go in that direction.

We go through that process in different ways in our lives. Some do it with their job: they have a job, they did not like it, they repented—if you will allow me the term—they repented and looked for another job. For some, the change worked out well, but others are jumping from job to job and still have not found themselves and do not know where they are going.

For others, it is a person, a man or a woman. You are with a man or a woman: “No, this woman does not fulfill me.” You change direction, you are with another woman, you repent again: “Oh, let me change direction.” What I say about women, I also say about men; it is the same for women who are looking for men.

But we do not realize, my brothers and sisters, as the Pastor rightly said last Sunday, that our source of life is found in the person of Jesus, and we have to remember that if we are going to find that meaning in life, we have to find it in Him. It is in Him, in His love and His promises to us, because He is vast, He fills everything to capacity, He is an eternal God. I do not know whether our minds can grasp that, but the Lord is here with us now, the Lord is still in yesterday, and the Lord is in tomorrow; the Lord is still filling all of it.

If I find a sense of being, a value, a reason to live in Him, my repentance has to be directed toward Him and not toward just any thing, person, article, or object. It cannot be; all of that passes away, but He does not pass away. I imagine that all of us here, at the different stages of our journey of faith, struggle with these ideas. I live by a promise. How many of you live by a promise? And how many of you, along with me, dare to say that the circumstances in which we live are totally contradictory in light of that promise and its reality? In other words, sometimes the circumstances one faces in life make you say, “Wait, what I envision from this promise is this, but what I have down here—it is as though two plus two does not equal four. If what this promise is telling me is that I am going to have a solid, stable family, a stable job, peaceful children who honor and respect me as their father, then why is what I am experiencing that they even kick me, speak disrespectfully to me, and do not obey me? Why am I experiencing that?”

“Why am I working this little job cleaning toilets every day when what I want is an office job, with my own desk, a view of the city from my window, a secretary, and a staff of people working with me? Why am I here having to clean?” I could keep giving examples, my brothers and sisters, but remember that God can even make use of you while you are cleaning a toilet in order to lead you in the direction in which He wants to take you.

That son or daughter who is still giving you a headache—God can use that to lead you to experience that family full of peace and love that you want to see. What you have to do is keep your eyes fixed on Him. I know it seems very easy and very simple—easier said than done. I understand that, but that is how God is; those are His mysteries. “Omar, many people have betrayed me and broken their promises to me, and that has robbed me even of the desire to keep going.” Hey, people may fail you, but God will not fail you.

And look, even if it occurs to you to think that God has failed you, that is a lie from the devil; do not believe that lie. What can separate you from the love of God? How many of you believe that promise too? Look, let me read it; this was something that just came to me as a bonus. Romans chapter 8, verse 38—look at what it says: “For I am convinced that neither death”—look where the list begins; it begins with death. Could it not have said, “For I am convinced that neither my husband, nor my husband, nor my children, nor my mother-in-law”? Could it not have said that? He painted the worst-case scenario for you; He painted it first. Neither death nor life will be able to separate you from the love of God. On the contrary, look at this. Again, I believe funeral services help to affirm these promises within us, because death becomes the doorway to a completely new reality—but not for just anyone, only for those who have died in the Lord Jesus.

And this was something that exploded in my mind on Friday night as I listened to our Pastor Roberto speaking in the context of the people who were here on Friday night, and as he explained the trauma that we pastors sometimes go through when we have to conduct funerals for families who have not known the Lord. Look, we suffer as pastors; we suffer because if the person who died did not know the Lord, look, there is only so much we can do with words to bring a sense of hope to that family. The most we can say is, “We hope that the Lord, at his last breath, showed him grace and mercy, or has him somewhere over there, in some little corner; He has him there somewhere.”

But when a person dies in the Lord, my brothers and sisters, the dynamic is completely different, because we can even sing here, “Your people say thank you,” for the life of a person who lived in light of what You wanted for her and passed that on to the rest of her family. And when she dies, we can now smile because she is up there enjoying You.

This may sound strange to you, but last night—well, last night when we left the cemetery, I was chatting with two people who were riding with me in the car, and last night when I went to bed, I was lying there meditating. I said to myself, “Lord, I am going to direct my prayer to a different person,” and I said, “Berta, if you can hear me, if God ever gives you permission, let me know what heaven is like.” And some will say, “What heresy! How can you pray to Berta?” It is not that I was praying to Berta; I was talking to her too. And I know it sounds strange, my brothers and sisters, but that is what I see of the mystery of the life we have here with Jesus: some have already gone on ahead of us, while we are still here waiting.

How many people have I known whose family members died and who, weeks or months later, had a dream in which that family member appeared to them, and it was as though they received a revelation of what heaven is like? Why not? Why not? If that is the way God uses to comfort someone and keep a promise burning, so be it. God can use anything. But here we are; we are living by promise. Day after day, we live by promise. And it is not a promise, my brothers and sisters, that makes us feel inferior; on the contrary, it is a promise that gives us a sense of fullness, a sense of confidence, courage, and steadfastness so that we can keep moving forward and face whatever may come. That is where the Lord has us.

Look, if I keep reading, 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 13 says: “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells”—the righteousness of God. When we fail in something, the syndrome that seems to overwhelm us makes us say, “Oh, I am not worthy of so much grace, so much mercy.” Nevertheless, the Lord keeps saying, “Hey, even while you were in your sins, Christ died for you.” A righteousness was demonstrated to you, and it is that righteousness that God wants to put to work in the midst of your life, so that through that righteousness you may become an instrument for others. And that is something only the Lord makes possible.

“While you are waiting for these things,” ask yourself: What are you waiting for? Ask yourself a genuine, honest question: What are you waiting for? In what have you placed your trust? What is that promise that keeps you oriented, that gives you direction, so that even though you take different blows, you can turn, look in that direction, and say, “Okay, this is the way I am going”? “While you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found by Him spotless, blameless, and at peace.” My brothers and sisters, God wants a people who can be at peace. Our peace does not come from the systems of this world. Our peace does not come from the person beside you, even if that person is the one you love most. The peace you can experience does not come from whatever good job you may have. Your peace is found in the Lord.

Peace in your heart—that peace we cannot explain with mere words because it is something that has to be lived, that has to be experienced, so that you can then say, “Wow, yes, Lord, I am at peace.” That is something only He can do. If you want me to give you some advice this morning, look, let us make an effort—I am going to speak in the plural because this is medicine that I too swallow much of the time—let us make an effort, my brothers and sisters, to take our eyes off the circumstances before us, off the sense of inadequacy that they may cause in us and the sense of incapacity they may cause. Look, those are tools the enemy uses to turn our gaze away from God, who is the only One to whom we can lift our eyes, for our help comes from Him, our hope comes from Him, and our strength comes from Him so that we can continue moving forward at all times.

Acknowledge that, yes, we have failed. Hey, we have an advocate before the Father who can forgive us and set us free. If we have failed to keep a promise to a loved one who is very close to our heart, look, in the Lord that relationship can be restored; it can be worked on. I even dare to say that if I, as a Pastor, have failed in my role regarding a promise, I also believe that the Lord can restore my life so that I can continue living in light of a calling He has for me. If I can say that, my brothers and sisters, I know you can say it too. The Lord’s promises do not slip away like sand through our fingers; they are not like water between our fingers. The Lord’s promises have substance; they are permanent. They are like a rock beneath our feet on which we can stand, my brothers and sisters, and remain firm. And if you fall, make sure you fall on that rock so that you can get back up again.

“Let us make every effort to be found by Him spotless, blameless, and at peace.” God wants you to be at peace. In order for you to experience that peace, you have to live in light of His promises for your life. I want to take some time here to pray. I know we prayed a while ago, but I feel in my heart that I should pray for some of you. As I look across this sanctuary, I see different people. I know some of you very well; I do not know others very well. But whatever situation in life you may find yourself in, remain firmly grounded in the Lord’s promises.

It may seem that the world around you is falling to pieces. It may seem that your hope is gone, but in the Lord your hope endures. Those things you are waiting for—the time will come when they become a reality. And I even dare to say this: even if you had to die, God will make sure that the promise He gave you is fulfilled in the lives of those for whom He gave it to you. That is how far I will take what I am saying. Remember that we see the here and now; God sees yesterday and tomorrow, and He knows how to make promises. God makes promises well, my brothers and sisters; God makes promises well. God holds great parts of the plan in His hand; we do not. God knows how to promise. He gave it to you; He will fulfill it. Keep your trust in Him; keep your trust in Him.

Even though you are being threatened by different things around you, keep your eyes on Him. This is possible only when the Lord is there in your heart, and I would like to take this moment to pray. If there is anyone here this morning who has not yet made that decision in their heart, I dare to put it this way: these words will not have their full effect if you do not have the Lord Jesus in your heart. If you have not made a confession of faith in Him, these words will go in one ear and out the other; they will have no impact on you. You need the Lord Jesus in your life, because He alone makes it possible. It is not you, it is not your wisdom, it is not your intelligence, it is not your years of experience; it is the Lord Jesus living in your heart that makes these promises possible.

I want to pray for you right where you are. If you want to accept the Lord Jesus into your heart because you are already tired of the things around you, you may say to me, “Pastor, I have already tried, but it did not work.” Hey, try again. With the Lord, you cannot go wrong; He is there for you. This is your day of salvation. And in the same way, I also speak to all of us who have lived for many years in the light of those promises, of that hope. You know very well how you are doing today. You know how the different experiences of life have shaken you to such a degree that it has become difficult for you to keep going, or you have thought about setting His promises aside. But this morning the Lord is here to let you know: My promises are yes; the promises I make are yes, and no when they have to be no.

You can come confidently before the throne of grace. Why? Because faithful is the One who promises; faithful is the One who promised. I believe this, my brothers and sisters. If I did not believe it, I would not have preached this message. God Himself knows the struggles I have as I preach this very thing, but I declare it as an exercise of faith because I know that I am going to see the hand of God, my brothers and sisters. And I know that you, too, can see the hand of God, but only when we manage to surrender ourselves blindly to the Lord—that is, “Father, look, I am placing everything in Your hands. I have lost control of things, and I am going to hand it over to You once again. I want to find strength in Your promise, that hope which gives a completely new life to my being and to everything around me.” If you want to receive that prayer, look, I invite you: join me, and together let us pray to the Lord that this sense of hope may be strengthened within us.

And I know that perhaps this call is not for everyone, but for those who truly understand the weight of what this message is communicating. Jesus is the giver and fulfiller of promises; let us never forget this. If you identify with these words, stand up right where you are. Beloved Lord Jesus, how beautiful it is to breathe air that is filled with hope—a hope that does not disappoint, a hope that does not put us to shame, but rather a hope that leads us toward a future filled with justice, filled with peace. It is a hope that nourishes today with a strength and an energy that come only from You. And Jesus, right now I come before You together with each of my brothers and sisters. Lord, amid the dilemmas of our lives, the struggles of our lives, the joys of our lives, and the victories of our lives, we want to remain steadfast in Your promises, Lord, even when the things around us may often seem a little confusing, when perhaps we do not know where tomorrow’s provisions will come from, when we do not know where the answer to a dilemma will come from. Lord, we turn our eyes toward You, toward You who are the giver and fulfiller of promises.

Toward You, who are not a man that You should lie, nor a son of man that You should repent. You have spoken, and You will do it. You have spoken, Lord. I firmly believe that Your Word does not return empty; You fulfill Your promises, whether in our time or in the time of those who come after us, but You fulfill Your promises. Lord, we fix our eyes on You; we anchor our hearts in You, Lord. And we ask You, O Father, that when we return to our homes, when we meet our loved ones again, when we meet our coworkers and our neighbors again, Lord, or even when we find ourselves alone again in the solitude of our home, may Your promises breathe fresh air over our lives, strengthen us, Lord, and let us know that You are there; that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither principalities nor powers—nothing, Lord—will separate us from that love You have shown us.

Father, I declare Your sons and daughters strengthened in You this morning, Lord. May this morning serve as an infusion of energy so that we can continue to face everything that lies ahead of us. Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord, for being patient with us and with our inconsistencies, and in the meantime, help us to live trusting in You and in Your promises. To You we give all the glory and all the honor, to You alone, Lord. Through Your Son Jesus we pray. Amen, Lord, amen, amen and amen. Thank You, God.