God: The Promise Keeper

** Going back through some of my old articles for our church, I came across this one. The ideas that led to it have been on my mind recently, as for a while there it looked like Bill McCartney 2.0 was coming in the form of Prime Time Deion Sanders. Both are/were coaches for the University of Colorado. Both are very outspoken Christians. Coach Mac started a movement over three decades ago that was called Promise Keepers. I went to a couple of the meetings and they were in some ways quite extraordinary. Here is the article:

We all know about the movement that began in Boulder a few years back called “Promise Keepers.” In and of itself, it is a good thing to be a man (or woman) who keeps promises. Our promises are our word. They are how we uphold God’s law. But we must never forget the basis for our promise keeping. Indeed, without it, our promise keeping becomes a form of works righteousness. Michael Horton says, “It is God’s promises that have real currency, not ours. It was not the promises Jacob was willing to make - for God knew then as we know now that Jacob was not a promise-keeper” (Horton, In the Face of God, 72).

Here are 7 gospel promises that provide the basis for all of our promise keeping.

1) God and Himself. God is committed to honor Himself in all ways at all times in everything He does for His glory and Name’s sake and for our confidence and joy.

2) God as a Mentor. God is committed to being the Good Shepherd who seeks, finds, and takes care of His sheep.

3) God and our Destiny. God is committed to giving eternal life to all who obey the law perfectly and eternal damnation to all who don’t obey the law perfectly.

4) God and His Son. Thankfully, given #3, God was committed to providing a plan that secures the salvation of undeserving people by sending, delighting in, and causing His Son to live a perfect life, die a horrific death, and become a living sacrifice who imputes his perfect righteousness to all who admit that God alone does everything in their salvation including granting them faith and repentance.

5) God and His Church. God is committed to seeing that the gates of Hell will never prevail against His true Church.

6) God and His Children. God is committed to giving every spiritual blessing and all the hope of salvation to the children whom he has adopted to be his own.

7) God and Eternity. God is committed to work out our salvation by sanctifying (bringing into the image of His Son) all whom he calls his own and to never losing any of those he has chosen.

Doug Van Dorn, Oct 2003