Have you ever said, “But you promised!” when someone you loved disappointed you?
We all have. Few things are worse than having an expectation that someone will do something or give you something they said they would and then they didn’t do it.
It’s horrible when a friend does this, but even worse if we feel God has let us down.
Why this happens and what to do about it in our relationship with God is what our podcast today is about.
Following the podcast and then a copy of the notes/transcript of it.
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Let’s get into our topic today on how to avoid disappointment with God.
We are all in desperate need of encouragement after the last couple of years. Covid made 2020 and 2021 a misty nightmare of loss and confusion. 2022 isn’t looking a lot better with the fears of new variants, what that means in shutdowns and travel restrictions, and the economic uncertainty of inflation and supply chain issues.
During all this, the proper place to turn for hope is to God—that is our one true place for hope and that’s why a false hope and disappointment with God is so dangerous. If God can’t be trusted to do what He says, why believe in Him or serve Him?
Many people have turned away from their faith during the Pandemic and one reason I think this happens is because of false expectations about what God will do. What I want to discuss today is that these false expectations don’t come from God or what is in the Bible, but what is often preached out of context, even with the best of intentions, about God. You need to discern what are proper reasons for hope and trust in God’s promises and what are false hopes that lead to disappointment.
False expectations often come from the assumption that the promises claimed are unconditional—that any passage that looks good can be taken out of context and claimed.
But that is not how the Bible works.
We’ll look at three passages in a minute that a devotional I read recently stated all Christians should claim at this time. Sadly I don’t believe that is true because of the context of the verses.
Before I get into the 3 specific verses, let me explain that overall, a challenge here is that we forget some of the promises of God are unconditional and some are conditional.
Examples of God’s unconditional promises include:
God promises to love us.
“Give thanks to the Lord because he is good, because his faithful love endures forever.” 1 CHRONICLES 16:34
“Certainly, the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly, God’s compassion isn’t through! They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness.” LAMENTATIONS 3:22-23
And we have a foundational promise of how the world will work:
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.” Gen. 8:22
Day and night; summer and winter, God’s love—all unconditional promises.
But not all promises in the Bible are unconditional
We could list many more unconditional promises in the Bible, but in much of the Bible, when God promises to do certain things, we must do something first. One of the most important steps in Christian maturity and in having a good relationship with your God is to know what category a promise fits into, either unconditional or conditional.
To help you understand this, I’ll first go through an example of a familiar conditional promise in the Bible and then go through examples of how promises have been misused from the devotions I was reading.
A New Testament example
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:9, NIV.
The promise of this verse is that God will forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness. What an encouraging, hopeful promise it is, but the promise is not unconditional. It doesn’t mean we can simply go along and mess up, disobey God however we want and trust he will forgive. As the verse makes clear, forgiveness and cleansing will happen, but the condition is that we confess our sins.
“To confess” is the Greek word, homologeō and some of the meanings for it include: to confess, not to deny, to admit or declare oneself guilty of what one is accused of, to declare openly.
As these definitions make clear, ignoring sin, pretending something didn’t happen, and automatically expecting forgiveness is not what the verse promises.
Mumbling something like, “Well, I’m sorry that upset you” when we know we did something unkind is not what confessing our sin means.
Confession is when we say something like, “God, I knew I shouldn’t talk that way, but I was upset, and my mouth was out of control. I know that is wrong; what I said is wrong and I humbly ask your forgiveness.”
It’s then and only then that God’s forgiveness can wash over us like a refreshing shower on a hot day and we can walk out cleansed. If we need to, we may follow confession with an apology if our sin harmed another person or restitution in the case of more serious sins, but the primary thing, the first thing, is an honest confession before God.
That is one example of a conditional promise and there are many, many more in the New Testament, but to move along with the lesson today, I’ll now share three of the verses that were given without context or conditions in the devotion I read. First, I’ll list the verses as they were given. Then, I share the context of each one and the serious conditions that come before the promised blessings.
Here are the three passages of promises
Malachi 3:11 “I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty.
Joel 2:25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.
At first look, these verses appear to promise, as the devotion went on to say: a protection from economic hardship, for God to restore the losses from natural disasters, and for God to do great things through us by his power. The assumption was that because people suffer, God will make everything better and we simply need to believe He will do that for the promises to come true.
These are wonderful promises we would all like to claim in our weary hearts at the end of 2021. Can we simply claim them? Can we trust in the Bible for God to do what He says without any conditional action on our parts?
Let’s look at the context of each to see if there are conditions.
First, I’ll read the verse, then the context of the passage, then give you additional historical context if it applies, and finally suggest how we might honestly claim or apply the verses.
Malachi 3:11 passage
Malachi 3:11 “I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty.
Suggested unconditional application: God will protect you from economic harm if you simply trust him and claim this verse as true.
Let’s look at the context of the verse to see if it is an unconditional promise.
Here is the context, starting at:
Malachi 3:7 Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
With that context, then comes the verse.
Malachi 3:11 “I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty.
This is not an unconditional promise. The conditions seem clear. God is not going to bless if His people do not first return to Him and then bring their tithes and offerings into the storehouse.
Many would then assume (and many sermons have been preached on this) that if you give your tithe to the church, THEN you are guaranteed God’s blessing.
Additional study shows a simple, you do this, God will do that formula isn’t as clear-cut as it first seems. This passage is a great example of how pulling out to the larger historical context is necessary for a better understanding of the conditions and the promise of the verse.
The historical context of the situation is that the prophet Malachi preached near the end of the time of Nehemiah who was Israel’s leader and rebuilder of the walls around Jerusalem after the return of the Jews from Babylon. After years of rebuilding and religious revival under Nehemiah’s leadership and Ezra’s teaching, Nehemiah goes back to Babylon for a visit and when he returns, he finds that the revival had died. He found that the people were back to living for themselves and doing what they wanted. They had not been bringing the tithes into the Temple storehouse and so the priests had left the service of God to go back to working their fields. Both private devotion and public worship floundered.
The Temple storehouses were empty, and this was a serious situation beyond not paying for public worship. The Temple storehouse in that day not only paid for the work of the priests, but it was the source of social welfare for the poor. By the selfishness of the people, not only did worship cease, but so did the care of the most vulnerable, who were of special concern to God.
Precisely how does all that translate into application for us today? Even if we want to obey the conditions of the promises, it is not a simple answer.
Does that mean all our tithes should go to the church (is the church the storehouse?) or can some go to mission agencies, social service groups in our cities, or to groups like World Vision? And what is a tithe anyway? Is it on our full paycheck? Before or after taxes? Is a strict numerical tithe enough, considering when you compare the personal cost of a tithe of someone making minimum wage and someone else making far above their needs? Is 10% too much for some and not nearly enough for others? And isn’t the tithe no longer valid for the New Testament, but the principal of responsibility for everything we have belonging to the Lord?
My purpose here isn’t to attempt to answer these questions, but we need to at least ask them. The main point is that we realize that our God requires that His people obey his commands and attempt to live as He requires. He requires people not only think about themselves but the importance of supporting worship and caring for the poor. The full answer to what is required for God to financially bless your life it is so much more complex than a simple promise you’ll be blessed because you suffered or simply write a check that is 10% of your income and you do what you want with the rest regardless of the suffering around you.
I don’t want to sound harsh, but we need to be careful we don’t distort scripture because it feels good, and we feel we deserve certain things from God because we think we did what He commanded when most likely we only did what was easy for us.
We aren’t done…. on to the second example:
Joel 2:25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
I’ve always loved that verse—who doesn’t? I’ve had some huge and heart-breaking losses in my life, and I’d love to see a restoration from them. Large or small, everyone has had losses from the last few years and we all long for restoration. So, what can we expect as a promise from God? Are there conditions to this verse?
But let’s press ahead and look at the context of the verse. Because of time, we won’t read all of it, but please take time to look at all of Joel 2, and for a fuller understanding, read the whole book. However, looking at a few of the verses that proceed this promise will give us an idea of the conditions for it:
Joel 2: 12 Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
13 Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
14 Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave behind a blessing—
Heartfelt repentance on a national scale according to this passage is preliminary for God to even consider that he “may return and leave a blessing.” Again, there is much we could consider on what it would mean to fulfill the conditions of a promise made to Israel at a specific time and in a specific situation and how that applies to us today, but the main point to take from this is that you cannot simply grab and go with any promise that sounds good and then be disappointed with God if He does not do what you want Him to do.
At the very least, humbly ask what would the Lord have you to do, what do you need to repent of in your life to be pleasing to Him?
One more—and this will be more encouraging than the others
Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.
In some ways, it’s easy to properly apply this verse. Obviously, we are not powerful in ourselves to do much of anything—but God can do everything through His Spirit. Consistent teaching in all of the Bible is that God can do what we cannot and if He wants to use us He can.
In many ways, this is unconditional as it puts the decision to bless in God’s hands—but there is more to the context of this verse that makes it especially encouraging, and especially to the many of us who may have traveled the path of life for many decades and still feel we haven’t done what we’d hoped to do for the Lord.
Here is the context of the verse.
Zechariah was the preaching partner of Haggi, and both were prophets who also lived when the Jews had returned from the Babylonian captivity. The returning exiles were led by a man named Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, ancestor of Jesus, but who at the time was the very tired leader of refugees struggling to survive in a devastated homeland.
They had returned from Babylon some 18 years earlier and had constructed an altar to worship God, but one thing led to another—opposition, threats, exhaustion, and the building of the Temple stopped.
When the workers and leaders wore out, God called in his prophets, Haggai and Zechariah (read Haggai for his rousing sermons) and based on their preaching and encouragement, the building started up again. It’s in the midst of this rebuilding, with many doubts and fears of the people still evident that the verse quoted was spoken:
Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.
We tend to focus on the promise, but as encouraging as it is, I think one of the most significant things about the verse is who it was addressed to—Zerubbabel, the leader who quit for whatever reasons. But not only does God encourage him with this promise, but the passage goes on:
Zec 4: 8 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.
10 “Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel?”
God is specifically making this promise to a man who was called to a great work but didn’t finish it and now God promises to joyfully help him complete His work.
The context here is more complex than a few surrounding verses. As I said earlier the larger historical setting is the people have returned to Israel from Babylon under the leadership of Zerubbabel and this is how the prophet Haggai in the book just before this one describes the situation:
In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest:
2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”
3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home; I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.
…..12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.
……14 So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God, …..4 But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ….
Haggai 2:20“‘From this day on I will bless you.’”
And that blessing is what the passage in Zechariah is referring to.—that not by might or power, but by God’s Spirit, God will enable Zerubbabel to finish the work he started almost 20 years earlier. This is a great example of how knowing the context not only helps us properly apply a passage, but ads to our depth of understanding of it.
In conclusion, how can we avoid being disappointed with God?
- Throughout the Bible, the answer is the same:
- We cannot pull promises out of context and expect God to fulfill the promise if it has conditions.
- We need to understand the context and the conditions before we can expect the fulfillment of a promise
- The context may be as simple as reading the entire verse (as in 1 John 1:9) or as complex as understanding the passage in Zechariah, where to fully understand the meaning of the promise we need to understand the historical setting of it and the messages in two prophetic books.
The overall answer, encompassing answer to not only avoiding disappointment on specific promises, but also on a good relationship with God in every area of our walk with Him is to know Him well, to understand how He has worked in the past so we have a true foundation for our expectations in the present and the way to get that is to read our Bibles.
And as you know if you’ve listened to these podcasts (and if not, go to the links on www.Bible805 that go into detail on it), that the best way to understand your Bible correctly is to read the whole thing in chronological historical order as I’ve done for many years in my life and will be doing in the coming year. My plan, Lord willing, is to resume weekly podcasts and commentary on the readings as we do it.
I have a new, modified schedule for this year that I’m quite excited to share. On the ww.bible805.com website are free schedules, journal pages, motivational material, everything you need to do this.
I pray many of you will join me as we read the entire Bible in chronological, historical order in the coming year, and I promise, if you do, you won’t be disappointed.