Beloved,
If there's one thing that can cause conflict in a family, it's the feeling that promises have been made, and then broken. Perhaps you have younger kids in your house who've protested this week, "But you promised." Or older kids who've debated with you about precisely what was said or not said. Or maybe you've had that conversation with your spouse or housemate. Regardless of the relationship, the issue is the same. We count on promises. We set our expectations, make our plans, and even make promises to others, based on the promises (real or perceived) that have been made to us. And when those promises (real or perceived) are broken, the disappointments are real. More than that, trust is compromised and character is impugned.
If that's true in our families, it's also true with God. We count on God keeping his promises. We hold him to even higher standards than we hold our parents our spouses. So it's important to ask, what promises has God made us? Hosea 14:4 gives us three promises that in many ways sum up all of God's promises to his people.
I will heal their apostasy, I will freely love them, for my anger will have turned from him. (Hosea 14:4)
First, God promises to heal our apostasy. In common parlance, apostasy is the repudiation of belief. But in the Bible, apostasy is repudiation of a relationship. It's treachery, faithlessness, and it's not an intellectual doubt so much as it is a spiritual and personal corruption. We abandon God because we're in love with ourselves. Our hearts are warped and turned in on themselves. We all have spiritual heart disease, and it's killing us. But in the gospel, God promises to heal our hearts. This is the language of irresistible grace. There is no disease, not even our diseased hearts, that is immune to the Great Physician's work. Like a heart surgeon, he removes our diseased hearts and gives us new ones. Jesus called it being born again, or regeneration. These new hearts are in love with God, turned outward toward him, beating with the life that comes from God himself.
Second, God promises to freely love us. Most of the time, the love that we give and the love that we receive from each other comes with strings attached, even if we don't mean to. Our love is conditional - on how we feel that day, on whether we got a good night's sleep, on whether we feel we've been treated as we ought. At its best, our love is conditioned on our fickle feelings. At its worst, our love is conditioned on what we get out of it. But in the gospel, God promises to freely love us. This is the language of unconditional election. His love is not coerced. It's not transactional. He's not in it for what he can get out of it. He simply chooses to love, and having made that choice he follows through with it completely. God doesn't choose people to tolerate, or to include in his circle of influence, or to add to his collection. He chooses people to love them with a love that knows no limits.
Third, God promises to turn his anger away from us. We are often justified in our anger when promises are broken. The reality is that when it comes to God, we're the promise breakers in the relationship, not him. We've broken the promise implicit in our creation - that we were made to live for him. We've broken the promise implied by our guilty consciences - that we owe him our obedience. We've broken the promise made in our professions of faith - that we will follow him. God is justified in his wrath. But in the gospel, God promises to turn his wrath away from us. This is the language of our definite atonement. Jesus' death on the cross was propitiatory, which is a fancy word that means he turned aside God's wrath toward you by satisfying it for you. Jesus' death on the cross didn't potentially reconcile you with God, it accomplished that reconciliation. As the hymnist marveled, "Guilty, vile, and helpless we, / Spotless Lamb of God was he; / Full atonement - can it be? / Hallelujah! What a Savior!"
This is what God has promised us in the gospel - regeneration, adoption, justification. And he has kept those promises fully in Jesus Christ - choosing us unconditionally in Christ, extending his grace irresistibly through Christ, and reconciling us to himself fully by Christ. We have no cause to be angry, and every reason to be thankful, because God has kept every promise he's made to us.
It's easy right now to begin to think that God hasn't kept his promises. That graduation celebration we were looking forward to isn't going to happen. The plans we put in place for this summer aren't going to work out. Hopes for internships, jobs, and relationships are dashed. Jobs have been furloughed or terminated. And we fear even worse. Maybe someone we love will get sick, or even die. Maybe a dream for the future seems destroyed, rather than merely delayed. And in that disappointment and fear, we're tempted to believe that God isn't keeping his promises.
God never promised us those things. He didn't promise that our plans would work out, our dreams and desires come true. He never promised us that our life would be free of worry, or disappointment, or sorrow. Instead, he made us a better promise - a promise of regenerating, electing, atoning love that he has kept fully in Christ. Come what may, don't be angry at God for breaking promises he never made. Rejoice, because God has kept the promise he need not have made, but freely did.
Counting on his promise with you,
Your pastor,
Michael