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Sermons at Trinity Church |
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Genesis 15 ‘YOUR VERY GREAT REWARD’22nd February 2004Jonny Elvin |
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All Bible references in this sermon transcript are taken from the English Standard Version. This can be found at www.biblegateway.com
I have mixed feelings when it comes to roller coasters. At one moment you fear for your life as you hurtle towards a brick wall only to turn just before you get to it, the next moment you’re taken to the top and have a great view of the area. Abram has had a real low point back in ch12 when he went to Egypt. There have been twists and turns with Lot going his own way and Abram rescuing him. Ch15 of Genesis is a high point on the roller coaster ride that is Abram’s life.
1. God promises Abram countless offspring 15.1-5
After Abram rescued Lot and overcame the temptation to take the plunder the Lord came to him once again. Abram receives a message from the Lord reassuring him of divine protection and provision. 1After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great."
But in practical terms the promise seems as far away from fulfilment as ever. Lot has gone back to Sodom, Abram and Sarai aren’t getting any younger and all Abram can think about is an heir.
2But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue[1] childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir."
Childlessness was viewed as an unmitigated disaster in the ancient world. Without children there was no one to carry on your family line or preserve the family inheritance, no one to look after you in your old age, no one to carry out the funeral rites that were seen as vital in securing your souls rest in the life to come.
This tragedy was compounded by the fact that Abram had been promised offspring by God in chs12-13. His only option seems to be to make a servant his heir. And he’s not happy about it. He doesn’t have even a tiny portion of the Promised Land to show for his trust. As with Moses in the wilderness he has no visible evidence to support his faith. The reality gap between promise and reality seems as big as ever.
Abram was discovering that God’s promises continually demand faith from us if we’re to live with the reality gap. But what do you do when you don’t have enough faith? What do you do when your grasp of the promises is slipping? Do you detect from vv2-3 that Abram began to fear that he would never see his promised posterity and that all he would receive from God was material blessing?
Many people would be satisfied with that, wouldn’t they? Especially if they were as rich as God had made Abram! But Abram wasn’t content with the good life. He hungered to see God’s purposes and promises fulfilled.
Abram wasn’t looking for any old heir. Eliezer would have done for that. Nor was he simply in love with babies, in search of an Abram Junior with a heart-melting smile. He wanted to see God’s purposes fulfilled through him having a son.
I wonder, would you say that there is a hunger to see God’s purposes and promises fulfilled? Is it your great goal to see God’s kingdom advancing through you? Are you trusting God even though you don’t see things progressing as quickly as you’d hoped?
Abram is a good model of faith for us when the reality gap threatens to overwhelm our faith. We should lay all our concerns out before God. It’s as Abram does this that God speaks to him.
4And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: "This man shall not be your heir; your very own son[2] shall be your heir." 5And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
Here we see Abram the prophet receiving a direct message from the Lord. It’s message of renewed hope – his inheritance won’t be left to his nephew Lot, or his servant Eliezer. He will have a son as his heir and countless descendants.
2. Abram responds by trusting God 15.6
6And he believed the LORD…
These simple words hide a profound reality. Faith was his response to what God had spoken. It was his attitude to what God had said. The key thing about faith isn’t in the person that has faith, the key thing is whom they have faith in. The question is, are they trustworthy? Do I have enough confidence in them to believe what they promise? There’s no special power needed to put your trust in what someone says. A leap in the dark is not what’s required. It was Abram’s settled conviction that God would do what he had promised, no matter what. So Romans 4.20-21 says…
20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
The statement that ‘he believed’ implies continued repeated acts of faith. But why say this? The OT presupposes that people ought to have faith in God, they should believe his promises and obey his commands. But often it’s in times of crisis that our faith is revealed. The reason this statement is mentioned here is that Abram is a model for us of what we should do in times of crisis; God’s people should put their faith in him whatever their circumstances. And it’s an important marker as to the way the Lord views belief and trust …and he counted it to him as righteousness.
God doesn’t view us as righteous because we’re good or any better than anyone else. Abram’s life should teach us that. God counts us as righteous because we trust him. We trust that when he says things like ‘whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ he means whoever. We trust that when we put our faith in Jesus as the one who died for our sins we have eternal life. We’re saying that we’re not righteous in and of ourselves, but we trust that faith in Jesus leads to being right with God. As Romans 4.23f says
22That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." 23But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, 24but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
When Christians trust in Jesus we are exercising the same faith that Abram did. Genesis 15 implies that the sons of Abram must be men of faith, Paul turns the words around and explains in Gal 3.7 that ‘it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham’. And so we who trust in Jesus are justified – it’s just as if I’d never sinned.
So when someone says to you, ‘I wish I had your faith’, what could you say? You could say that everyone has faith – they question is in whom or in what? The atheist has faith that there is no God and no afterlife. The Hindu has faith that he will come back into another life depending on what he has done in this life. The materialist has faith that the things he has will bring him fulfilment. The Christian has faith that God has spoken, that we have his words in the Bible. It’s because believe that what we read in the pages of this living book is trustworthy. We trust that the promises made to us are true. We have faith that God has acted decisively in history in sending Jesus to save us through his death and resurrection. That’s what it means to have faith like Abram. Is that your faith here this morning?
God promises Abram countless offspring. Abram responds by trusting God
3. God makes a covenant promise to Abram 15.7-20
7And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess."
8But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?"
God could have said ‘because I just told you’. But he doesn’t. The reassurance Abram receives is breathtakingly awesome. God gives him a covenant agreement, which is very visual and quite unforgettable.
9He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
What’s all this about? To cut the animals in half and walk through the middle was a way of making a binding covenant agreement. It was saying effectively ‘if I break our agreement, may I be torn into pieces like this animal.’
The covenant agreement doesn’t just concern Abram, it concerns Abram’s descendants.
What’s he talking about here? The Israelite slavery in Egypt.
14But I will bring judgement on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Which is of course what happened with the plagues on Egypt and the Israelites leaving with bags full of booty.
So that’s what will happen to Abram’s descendants, but what will happen to Abram?
15As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."
Well the ritual is ready and the promise is made. But the agreement needs ratifying – like signatures on a contract. Normally to do this both parties would walk between the sacrificed animals. But in this covenant only one party went through the middle – God, v17… 17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. The smoke and the fire symbolise God’s presence and are foreshadows of in the pillars of cloud and fire on Mount Sinai. The fact that it’s a one-sided agreement shows God’s grace. Abram brings nothing to the agreement and he has done nothing to deserve God’s blessings.
God ratifies the agreement. Isn’t this an amazing promise given to Abram? God is saying ‘I would rather be torn to pieces than break my promise to you to establish a people in this place’
18On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give[3] this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites."
But the Promised Land was only ever a shadow of a greater reality to come. So Hebrews 11.10 says ‘For he (Abram) looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ Which Hebrews 12.22 tells us is heaven.
By making a covenant and ratifying it with blood Abram would be in no doubt that God would do all that he had promised. In fact the promise could hardly have been displayed more vividly. The only way to make it even more vivid would be for the figure to become a reality – for the covenant-making God to come down to earth, take on human nature and taste death as the sacrifice in order to make a new covenant – not just for the Jews, but for all people. And that’s precisely what God did in Jesus. On the cross the curse of the broken covenant fell on Jesus in the place of humanity, so that the guilty ones who place their trust in him might experience the blessings of the new covenant made with Jesus’ blood.
So each time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim that God, in the person of Jesus, has made a new covenant.
Abram wouldn’t live to see the promise about the land fulfilled, but he did see what the promise pointed to. So Jesus says in John 8.56 ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ He recognises, albeit dimly, that God would bring about his promised blessing and the salvation of his people through Jesus.
We’ve seen in these chapters how Abram is the conquering king victorious over his foes. We’ve seen him portrayed in ch15 as a prophet to whom God speaks. The events that the Lord revealed to him will come to pass. And also in ch15 he’s pictured acting as a priest performing the rites at the covenant ceremony.
This picture of God’s man as prophet, priest and king will be repeated when Moses comes along. But both those men have their flaws. Ultimately it will take the new covenant with Jesus as God’s prophet, priest and king to show us what perfect faith looks like – trusting and obedient, even to death on a cross. Abram is only a prototype. Jesus is our perfect example.
Today as we exercise faith, we ‘the people of the New Covenant both imitate Christ and also walk in the footsteps of our forefather Abram’ (Wenham p335). And as we do so we are given God’s covenant guarantee. Trusting in Christ’s death in our place means that we too are counted as righteous before God. We are forgiven and start a new life with God by faith. And as surely as Abram’s descendants possessed the land that God promised them, so too shall we his children possess the heavenly Land of Promise. |