'I Will be With You!' (Gen 12-35)
- The most amazing promises of God being with people run through the Bible.
- If we can truly get hold of these promises and allow them to sink deeply into us, they will be a huge strength for us as we go into the New Year
Play Audio:
‘I Will be With You!’
— The most important thing to know in the coming year — Andrew Fountain: Dec 31, 2023
Video cover image by Teodor Drobota Unsplash License
Goal:
- The most amazing promises of God being with people run through the Bible.
- If we can truly get hold of these promises and allow them to sink deeply into us, it will be a huge strength for us as we go into 2024
‘I Will be With You!’
- Abraham, Sarah & their family
- The story continues through the O.T.
- The Promises for Us
1. Abraham, Sarah & their family
Abraham & Sarah
Take the risk of trusting me,
and I promise to be with you |
| Unbelief |
Trust
=faith |
Abraham & Sarah
— “leave, and believe”
Now the LORD said to Abram,
“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. Gen 12:1
By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Heb 11:11
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield… Gen 15:1
- Abraham was asked to take a huge risk. He was living in one of the most civilized cities in the ancient world
Trust me, and I will be with you!
- Take a risk:
- live using my wisdom not your own,
- and I will be with you
- Even when you mess up in your weakness
I will not abandon you, but am still with you
- I looked up ever reference in the Bible to God being with us and it was so encouraging just to read them all.
- I had such a blessed experience reading through them all
2. The story continues through the O.T.
The story continues:
Isaac & Rebekah
And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you Gen 26:24
Jacob
- On the run from his brother:
Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you Gen 28:15
- can you imagine what that felt like?
- 20 years later:
I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, Gen 32:10
- Near the end of his life:
…let us go to Bethel, so that I may make an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” Gen 35:3
- I want you to take in those words for yourself
- Jacob was a very flawed individual (flaws revealed so that we can identify)
- If you trust Jesus, then this is your God!
- If you can take in that last verse, I have done my job today
You have a choice in 2024
- Give in to fear / or choose to go your own way
- Put your trust in the God who says “I am with you”
- Undo the lie of the serpent, and trust God!
Moses & Joshua
It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deut 31:8
No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Josh 1:5
3. The Promises for Us
- But then this promise gets taken up for all those who have faith like Abraham, from all over the world
- Isaiah is the most quoted O.T. book in the N.T.
Isaiah 41
- you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
- clearly not limited to ethnic Israel
- fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.…
- What Isaiah does is take up the promises to Abraham, and then apply those to all of God’s people
- For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”
- What Isaiah does is take up the promises to Abraham, and then apply those to all of God’s people
- Hold hand—when it is icy
Isaiah 43
- But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
- When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.…
- Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you…
- Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.
- My Goal is that you should grasp these verses!
- 85 years ago, at the start of the New Year, it was 1939 and Adolf Hitler had just...
- In December 1939, King George VI was England’s reigning monarch, addressed the nation as the 2nd World War had just started
- Princess Elizabeth was only thirteen years old in 1939
- She persuaded her father to read this poem to the nation:
God Knows
by Minnie Louise Haskins (1875–1957)
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light
that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied: “Go out into the darkness
and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills
and the breaking of day in the lone East.
Romans 8 – Jesus with us
- Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…
- No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
- For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
- nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 2 – died, raised and seated “with Christ”
- But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
- even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
- so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
- For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God!
You have a choice in 2024
- Give in to fear / choose to go your own way
- Put your trust in the God who says “I am with you”
- Two of these are words of Jesus, and the third is reflecting on them.
New Testament Promises
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
And not one of them is forgotten before God.
Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. Luke 12:6–7
”I will not leave you as orphans;
I will come to you. John 14:18
Keep your life free from love of money,
be content with what you have, for he said,
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can humans do to me?” Heb 13:5–6
- What could be more amazing than to have God,
The most powerful entity in existence,
saying “I am with you!”, “I will never leave you!”
- Let’s pray a blessing!
Updated on 2024-01-21 by Andrew Fountain
Last updated on 31 Dec 2023
Published on 31 Dec 2023
