ENGAGE
Have you ever made some kind of bold decision or taken a strong stand on some issue and then at some point began to wonder if you really did the right thing after all? I know that I certainly have.
When Mary and I had kids, we made the commitment that Mary would stay home with the kids and not work outside the home while they were young. At the time, that decision really wasn’t all that difficult for us because I had a job where I was making very good money. But when Pete was about 3 years old, the company I worked for went bankrupt and all of a sudden we were in a position where I had no income at all so I think it was kind of natural for us to begin to question the commitment we had made because it sure would have been nice if Mary was working and bringing in some money.
Something similar happened when I decided to go into vocational ministry. After a short unpaid position with one church I was hired as a part time pastor of a small church here in town. But after about a year in that position it became very apparent that church was not a good fit for me or for my family so I resigned.
Shortly after that I began to work on a volunteer basis with a local church planter who was planting a new church in the Oro Valley area. A few months later he moved to Florida and the church plant was thrown into my lap. The next few years were a real roller coaster. We’d grow for a while and then it seemed like every time we reached something of a critical mass, we’d have one or two key families move out of town. We finally decided to just meet at our home over the summer and seek God’s direction. And for me personally I began to seriously question whether my decision to go into vocational ministry in the first place was really the right one after all.
TENSION
I would be really surprised if all of us here this morning haven’t gone through similar situations in our lives. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that some of you are in a situation like that right now.
So how do we survive, and even thrive, when we begin to wonder if we’ve really done the right thing? We’re going to let a man named Abram, help us answer that question this morning.
TRUTH
Last week we left off with God’s covenant with Noah in Genesis 9. Noah lived another 350 years after the flood and died at the age of 950 years old. His three sons – Ham, Shem and Japheth, began to have their own families and repopulate the earth, just as God had commanded. Those descendants and their families began to gather into nations.
It wasn’t long until the people had forgotten the flood and they gathered in the land of Shinar and decided to build a tower and try to become like God. But God thwarted their efforts by confusing their language and dispersing the people over the face of the earth.
About 360 years after the flood, just a few years after Noah dies, Abram, whose name means “exalted father” is born to his father Terah, who was a descendant of Noah’s son Shem.
When Abram was 75 years old, God came to him and told him to leave his home in Haran and go the place God would show him. God also promised Abram that he would make he and his descendants into a great nation and that his people would be a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:4)
Abram immediately took his family, including his nephew Lot, and left his home and set out for the land of Canaan, where God promised that He would one day give that land to his offspring. And Abram responds in worship by building an altar and calling on the name of the Lord.
But then a famine came to the land so Abram tool his family and settled in Egypt for a period of time. They eventually left Egypt and after allowing Lot to pick the choice land, Abram settled in Canaan, where God once again repeated His promise to give Abram’s descendants all the land that Abram could see. And once again Abram built an altar to the Lord.
But his wayward nephew Lot is taken captive by four kings from the east. So Abram leads 318 of his trained men against these kings and stages a surprise attack in which he defeats those kings and their men and recovers all of his people and their possessions.
Abraham meets the king of Sodom and Melchizedek, the king of Salem in the Valley of Shaveh, which is in the area that will eventually become the city of Jerusalem. As we learn later in Hebrews, Melchizedek, who is also identified as the priest of God Most High in Genesis, is a picture of our great High Priest, Jesus. Abram gives him a tenth of all that he had recovered in that battle. But he refused to take the goods offered to him by the king of Sodom, lest anyone could say that he, rather than God, had made Abram rich. In essence, Abram gave up great wealth because he was trusting that God, who had promised to bless him, would meet his needs.
That brings us to Genesis 15 and we’ll pick up the account there.
[Read Genesis 15:1-12]
Genesis 15 is a chapter of firsts:
• It is the first place in the Bible where we see the phrase “the word of the Lord came to…”, a phrase that is used frequently from that point forward, especially with the prophets.
• It is the first time in the Bible God is called “YHWH Adonai” – the mighty covenant-making God - which is how Abram addresses God in verses 2 and 8.
• It is the first place in the Bible where the terms “believe” and “righteousness” appear.
We’ll address the significance of these firsts as we proceed this morning.
Although Abram’s mindset isn’t explicitly revealed here, I think we can get a pretty good idea of what he was thinking by looking at God’s first words to him:
Fear not, Abram…
Although we can’t be completely sure of what Abram feared, I think the context gives us some pretty good ideas. It seems likely that Abram was questioning the wisdom of some of the decisions he had made recently. Should he really have rescued his nephew Lot? After all, those kings weren’t going to be really happy that they had been defeated by such a small handful of men and Abram feared that they might seek revenge.
And how about that decision to refuse the tremendous amount of goods from the king of Sodom. Maybe finances were tight and his wife Sarai had been bugging him to let her buy some new clothes and to redecorate the house. And besides the cost of all those trips to the fertility doctors were adding up pretty quickly, too.
So it was only natural for Abram to question those decisions and to be fearful about his future. But God addresses both fears with His words. First He tells Abram that He is his shield. He is going to protect Abram from any physical harm that others might try to inflict upon him.
He also promises that He will be Abram’s reward. There is some disagreement about exactly how the last phrase of verse 1 should be translated, but the general consensus seems to be that the idea here is that it is God Himself who is the very great reward that is promised to Abram. The idea is that Abram need not fear the consequences of refusing the material reward offered to him by the king of Sodom because he had God as his reward.
But Abram still has some doubts about these promises that God makes to him. After all it had been about 10 years since God had promised that his descendants would become a great nation and Abram still didn’t have a son.
In the Bible we find that there are basically two ways of approaching God with our questions and our doubts. One way is to do that with a defiant heart. And when that is done, God usually imposes some kind of consequence. The other way is the way Abram approaches God here with a heart that is more confused than defiant, a heart that is genuinely seeking to understand God.
The best illustration of these two different kinds of hearts is found in the birth accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus. When Zechariah asks “How shall I know this?” in response to Gabriel’s revelation that he is going to have a son, he is immediately unable to speak until after John is born. But when Mary asks” How will this be?” when Gabriel reveals that she is going to be the mother of Jesus, there is no reprimand or punishment. Zechariah’s response came from a defiant, unbelieving heart, but Mary’s similar words came from a heart that was just trying to understand God’s revelation more completely. And that seems to be what Abram’s heart is like here.
So once again, God repeats the promise He had made 10 years prior and He clarifies that promise to make sure that Abram understands that is it not Eliezer, but a son that is still to be born to him that will be his heir. Earlier God had promised that Abram’s descendants would be like the dust of the earth – so numerous than none could count them. And He reinforces that idea here by promising that his offspring would be more numerous than the stars in the sky.
And then in verse 6, we see that Abram believes God and that because of his faith God credits that belief to him as righteousness. And it is that verse that reveals to us the key principle from this passage:
Faith in God’s promises conquers
the fear of my prospects
Verse 6 is obviously the key verse in this passage:
And he believed the Lord and he counted to him as righteousness.
We ran across this verse last fall when Paul quoted it in the book of Romans. It is a crucial verse and it raises a couple of crucial questions:
• What did Abram believe?
• When was his belief credited to him as righteousness?
Before we answer those questions, let’s take a moment to define what the words “believed” and “righteousness” mean.
The Hebrew verb “believe” is primarily about stability, confidence and reliability. When Abram believed, he accepted the words of the Lord as reliable. And because of that belief He then acted upon God’s words and changed his behavior based on what God said. In the Hebrew mindset, genuine belief is always more than just intellectual assent to a set of facts. It always involves trust that results in action. So we can define “believe” like this:
To “believe” =
to accept God’s word as reliable and to act accordingly
“Righteousness” is defined much more simply and easily:
“righteousness” =
the state of being right with God
It is a word of relationship that indicates that because of his belief, Abram was considered to be in a right relationship with God. Obviously that doesn’t mean that Abram was sinless either before or after this event. His faith is going to waver at times and he won’t always stay on the straight path. But he never gives up on God and he keeps coming back to Him over and over because he trusts in God’s promises.
Now let’s deal with the second question first- When was his belief credited to him as righteousness? - since the writer of the Hebrews provides us with a clear answer:
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
(Hebrews 11:8 ESV)
Abram’s faith had first been demonstrated about 10 years earlier when he obeyed God’s command to leave his home and go to a place that God had promised to him as an inheritance. So it seems pretty clear that Abram’s faith had been credited to him as righteousness then and that the account in Genesis 15 is just a further validation of his faith. That idea is also confirmed by the fact that the verbal form of “believed” indicates this is not a one-time act, but rather Abram’s continual lifestyle.
The answer to the second question - What did Abram believe? – is not quite as clear cut. I think that Martin Luther’s analysis of this verse is really helpful here. He concludes that Abram’s faith is not mentioned until this point in the Bible text in order to emphasize the point that saving faith is one that focuses on the person and work of Jesus. In verse 6, Abram’s faith is specifically focused on the promise of a son, through whom blessing will come to the entire world. Obviously, at this point in history, Abram didn’t understand that fully, but the words of Jesus lead me to believe he may have known a lot more than we might think:
Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
(John 8:56 ESV)
So, Abram had at least some idea here that God was going to bless all the nations of the world through one of his descendants and he believed that promise to the extent that he could understand it at that time. And then he trusted in the promise to the extent that it allowed him to overcome his fears about his future prospects. From that point forward there is no evidence that Abram worried about retribution from those kings or about his finances.
In verse 7, God once again repeats His promise to give Abram’s offspring the land He had earlier promised to give to them. But once again, Abram, who hasn’t seen any hint of that promise being fulfilled in the ten years since it had first been given, expresses his doubts to God. Again, he does this out of a sincere desire to understand God rather than out of unbelief or disrespect.
God responds by “cutting a covenant” with Abram. As I mentioned last week, in that day there were no written contracts, but rather covenants that defined the relationship between two parties. Those covenants were usually sealed by cutting some animals in two and then the parties would walk between the two halves of the animals, probably to signify that if they broke the terms of the covenant, they would suffer the same fate as the animals.
So God had Abram prepare some animals, after which Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, God spoke to him in a vision and revealed that his descendants would sojourn in a land that did not belong to them and become servants and be afflicted for 400 years before God judged the nation they served and brought them out.
And then Abram saw God, pictured as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, pass between the animals, thus ratifying the covenant. The fact that only God, and not Abram. Passed between the animals indicate that just like the covenant that God made with Noah that we talked about last week, this covenant was unilateral and unconditional. God would be held to His promises regardless of what Abram and his offspring did.
As a result of that covenant, Abram was assured that…
Faith in God’s promises conquers
the fear of my prospects
How do I do that in my life?
APPLICATION
How to let faith in God’s promises conquer the fear of my prospects:
1. Take my doubts to God
When Abram began to have doubts when he hadn’t yet seen God’s promise come to pass even after many years, he took those doubts directly to God. And he honestly shared those doubts with God. But he did that with a heart that was honestly seeking God’s answers, not with a defiant heart that questioned God’s trustworthiness.
That kind of seeking God’s answers to our doubts is seen throughout the Scriptures. The Psalms, in particular, often begin with man questioning what he sees and how that lines up with God’s character and His purposes, plans, and ways. And it seems that God actually delights in those who seek answers to their doubts with that kind of heart, because we see God consistently answering those who approach Him in that way.
I certainly know that when I went through those times of doubting some of my decisions in life, I constantly had to keep bringing those doubts back to God and asking Him to confirm that those decisions were in fact consistent with what He wanted for my life. And as I did that, I had to then take the second step we see here…
2. Listen for “the word of the Lord”
We certainly see that Abram did that here. Once he laid his doubts before God, he listened for God’s answers. And sure enough, as we saw earlier, “the word of the Lord came to him”.
Fortunately for us, the word of the Lord still comes to us today. Obviously we don’t audibly hear God speak like Abram did, but we actually have something much better – God’s Word in written form that we call the Bible. That is the primary way that God communicates His promises to us today. While it is true that God can speak to my spirit through His Holy Spirit which means that I can often discern His desires for my life in prayer, the fact is that the Holy Spirit will never give any revelation that is not consistent with God’s written word.
So the main way that I “hear” the promises of God that might apply to whatever situation I find myself in is to “listen to the word of the Lord” by spending consistent time in the Bible.
During the period after the company I worked for went bankrupt and Mary and I began to question our decision to have her stay at home with the kids, it was only by being reminded of God’s promises as we read them in the Bible that made it possible for us to be obedient to what we believed God had called us to do. Through His Word we were reminded of that raising godly children was a lot more important to God than having more stuff and we were encouraged by the reminders we found in the Bible that God promised to meet our every need. I can tell you without a doubt that without being able to hear those instructions and promises from God through His Word, we would not have remained faithful to follow through with our commitment. But just hearing those promises was not enough by itself. We also had to apply the third step…
3. Trust in what God says rather than in what I can see
By the time the event in Genesis 15 take place, Abram is now around 85 years old. It has been 10 years since God first promised to make his descendants into a great nation who would bless the entire world but Abram still hasn’t had a son and he and his wife are now beyond their child bearing years. So based on what he can see with his own eyes, there is little reason for Abram to believe God’s promise.
But Abram makes the choice to trust in what God said rather than what he could see. Now that doesn’t mean that Abram did that perfectly. Before God finally brings his promise to pass, Abram and Sarai get impatient and try to take things into their own hands and Abram bears a son with Hagar, one of Sarai’s servants. That son, Ishmael becomes the father of the Arabs and that act of disobedience by Abram and Sarai is the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict that still endures today.
But when given a second chance to do things God’s way, Abram and Sarai do eventually obey God and have the son that God had promised – Isaac. And God even changes Abram’s name, which means “exalted father” to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude”, so that even his name becomes a testimony of a God who fulfills His promises.
When the church plant that I had been leading essentially came to an end, I couldn’t see any path to remaining in vocational ministry. What church was going to hire someone who hadn’t completed a seminary degree and who had pretty much been a failure as a church planter? So I had pretty much concluded that I was done with that part of my life and that I would probably go back to some kind of “secular” work. But during that time, the sense I kept getting from God that what I needed to do right then was to take the fourth step…
4. Be patient
As I just pointed out, Abram didn’t exactly excel here. Time after time he gets impatient until finally his impatience led him to try and makes God’s promise come true through his own actions. But ultimately, Abram did wait for God to carry out His promise.
Many of the people in the Bible who received God’s promises never got to see those fulfilled in their lifetimes. At the end of Hebrews chapter 11, which is often called the “Faith Hall of Fame”, we read these words:
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
(Hebrews 11:39 ESV)
Most of the great heroes of the faith died without ever seeing the promises of God come to completion in the person of Jesus. And yet they are all commended for their faith, and like Abram, were declared righteous by God because they trusted in what God had revealed to them at the time.
As I mentioned a moment ago, I certainly had to do that over that summer where our church plant had pretty much disbanded and we were meeting in our home, seeking God’s direction. I just had to trust in God’s promise that He loved me and had a plan for my life and then wait patiently for Him to reveal that to me in His timing. And one day that came in the form of a phone call from Denny Howard. And that’s how I ended up here before you today, over 13 years later.
INSPIRATION
Faith in God’s promises conquers
the fear of my prospects
What are some of your greatest fears in life right now? Maybe you’ve made a decision to follow God in some area of your life and now you’re having second thoughts about that decision because it has brought pain or difficulty into your life. That really shouldn’t come as a total surprise because Jesus warned us that if we follow Him, the world is going to hate us as they hated Him and therefore we will have tribulation in this world. But Jesus also promised that He is greater than the world and that His promises are more than adequate to overcome our fears.
ACTION
So as we close this morning I want to do something that I hope will be a very practical way for all of us to apply what we’ve learned this morning. In a moment, I’m going to give all of us a chance to share some promises of God that have been meaningful and helpful in our lives. And as we do that I’ve given you a place in your sermon outline to jot down one or two of those promises that might be particularly relevant to your life right now.
So I’m going to give all of you a couple minutes to think about some of those promises. If you can remember where to find that promise in the Bible, it would be great if you could turn there and give us the Scripture reference, but if not, that’s OK. And then once you’ve had a chance to do that, we’ll take a few minutes just to share those with each other.
[Share promises]
[Prayer]
Discussion questions for Bible Roundtable
1. What are some differences between the Hebrew and “Western” concept of what it means to “believe”?
2. How does Abram’s life confirm that “faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26)? How would you address those who say that James and Paul are at odds when it comes to that idea? (See Romans 6)
3. Do all the promises in the Bible apply to us today? How do we determine which ones we can rightfully claim?
4. Can you give an example from your own life of a promise of God that has been or is especially meaningful to you?
