Saturday-Promise

and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

1 Peter 3:21,22

We make lots and lots of promises all the time these days. Most of our promises are very small. You’re on the phone with someone and they ask for some piece of information or a phone number. When we automatically say yes, that’s a promise. We’re telling them that they can count on us to do what we committed to do.

But there are a handful of other promises. When you buy something with a credit card, you’re promising to pay for it. When you sell a car or a house, you sign lots and lots of papers. And buried in all those papers are a bunch of promises that you’re ready to stand behind. One is that you actually own it and that there’s nothing wrong that you’re hiding.

And then there’s lots of paper’s again when you buy a car or house. But this time, the promises are different. Instead of promising that nothing’s wrong with it, you’re promising to make all the payments. You’re saying that month after month, you’ll make that payment until it’s all paid for.

When we download an app onto our phone or computer, we get that long list of things that we quickly have to say “I agree” to without thinking. And when we click on that button, we just made a whole bunch of promises. And if you think I’m just being weird, ask the family that was told their hitting “I agree” on a streaming app stopped them from being able to sue for wrongful death because of a food allergy[1].

But the biggest promise I ever made happened one Saturday after Thanksgiving. There was this long list of things that I was being asked to do. But more than to just do them when I felt like it, or when it was easy, I was asked to promise to do them no matter what. No matter the personal inconvenience or sacrifice. I was asked to promise them till death do us part.

Peter’s telling his readers and us that there’s only one way to receive and keep a clear conscience with God. It’s not through our trying to be better people or do better things. It’s not through any promise or sacrifice that we make. These efforts will always, always, always come up short.

The answer to our greatest problem and need is the promise that God made for us. He gave himself for all our sins[2]. Jesus’ death on the cross is the one-time payment for all our sins, and for the sins of the whole world[3].

And the resurrection of Jesus from the dead shows us that God has accepted his sacrifice for all our sins. Without the resurrection, we’re still in our sins[4]. Because there is no guilt or condemnation in front of God because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross[5].

This is how we can have a clear conscience in front of God. Since he’s taken care of our sin problem once and for all, we can call God our Father, “Abba.” “Daddy[6].” There’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Looking back at my own life, there have been times where I just refused to believe that God would do all this for me. To pay for and forget all my sins. After all, if I did all these tellable things, then I had to be the one who paid for them. Who had to suffer to make up for them. But all my tries at doing enough good stuff was just a recipe for more guilt, shame, and failure.

It all comes down to God’s promise. His pledge. What he said he would do. His pledge, his promise is that he will pay for all our sins. And then, he pledged and promised never to bring them up again. They are buried with Christ, and we are raised to walk in newness of life[7].

So, the big question is whether or not we’re going to believe God and his promise. Are we going to let God take care of our sin problem, or are we going to try and do what only God can do? It’s really that simple. If we try to do things to pay our eternal debt before God, we’re only going to saddle ourselves with guilt and shame. It’s a promise that we can never keep.

But, coming to God and letting him do what only he can do is the solution. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the one-and-only promise that will take care of our greatest problem once-and-for-all. He does the paying. He does the saving. We do the receiving. We are saved through his grace that we receive[8]. Now that’s a promise worth believing.

Noodling Questions.

• Name three promises you made this week.

• Describe how you feel when someone breaks a promise they made to you.

• Since God never breaks a promise, how can we respond to him?

[1] https://apnews.com/article/disney-allergy-death-lawsuit-nyu-doctor-florida-8a6256b58311a01226d167fa80d37aad

[2] Galatians 1:4

[3] 1 John 2:2

[4] 1 Corinthians 15:17

[5] Romans 8”1

[6] Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6

[7] Romans 6:4

[8] Ephesians 2:8,9