THE LORD IS OUR SHIELD AND REWARD
GENESIS 15:1—6 AUGUST 31, 2003
GENESIS 15:1-6
1After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward."
2But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
4Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
How many of us haven’t met a great challenge in life and finally said, ‘Wow! We’re glad that’s over.’ We heard an example this morning in our first lesson (1 Kings 19:3-8). Elijah was ready to give up on life, ready to say, ‘There’s nothing left to live for.’ An angel came and strengthened him and he was able to look back and say, ‘The Lord is my strength and my reward.’ King David lived in Israel and ruled God’s people. As he ruled God’s people, he also fought many battles. There were many battles that he went into where the enemy was far stronger, bigger in numbers and had more war equipment. Yet David went ahead and fought those who stood against God and His kingdom. In Samuel, as he looked back at his life, realized that the Lord was his shield and great reward. From Samuel we read these words. "He (David) said: ’The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior--from violent men you save me’"(2 SAMUEL 22:2,3). Looking back, David expressed what the Lord had told Abraham – ‘The Lord is my shield and my reward.’
Today the words of encouragement that we have from the example of Abraham are the very same. We would agree with David, we would agree with Elijah, we would agree with Abraham and say
THE LORD IS OUR SHIELD AND OUR GREAT REWARD
I. A comforting shield for our earthly living
II. An undeserved reward in our eternal living
I. A comforting shield for our earthly living
To better understand today’s text, we need to look at chapters 13 and 14 of Genesis. We find there an account where Lot and his family are taken away as prisoners. You may remember Abram and Lot. The Lord had blessed them so much that their flocks were so big that no longer could they stay together. The animals that they had would eat up all the pasture and there was not enough for both of them so they went their separate ways. Lot took the plains of the fertile valley and Abram took the mountainous region. Because Lot chose that which was better, there were also other nations that wanted that land. Four kings rose up, defeated all the cities that were there and took all the inhabitants as prisoners. Abram heard about it so he, in his display of true Christian character, goes out and with the arm of the Lord defeats these four kings. He rescues Lot and his family. He rescues all of the people from the five cities who were taken away. He gets back all of their possessions. What does he do? He delivers the once defeated people back to their cities, gives all of their possessions back. They want to reward Abram but he says, ‘No. My reward is that the Lord has given us the victory.’ The only thing that Abram does with all the spoils of the war is that he gives ten percent to Melchizedek, a priest of the Lord.
Then we have Chapter 15 and our text for today in verses 1-6. The Lord comes to Abram and says, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." We might wonder to ourselves, ‘Why does the Lord say do not be afraid, Abram.’ Abram had just defeated these four kings. He was victorious. Abram had everybody returned to where they lived. The Lord knew that in Abram’s heart there was still something bothering him and Abram was going to tell the Lord. The Lord gives Abram a chance – He says, ‘don’t be afraid. I’m your shield, your great reward.’ 2But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" The Lord had given Abram the victory. The Lord had given Abram the opportunity to restore people to their rightful places. Still, Abram remembered the promises of the Lord that he would have children. Abram said to the Lord, ‘But Eliezer is going to inherit my estate.’ He repeats it again. 3And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." That’s what was bothering Abram. Abram had heard the promises of God – that he should leave his homeland, that he should leave his father, that he should be a wanderer and he followed the Lord. The Lord had told him also that his descendants would inherit all of his estate and yet here now, in this instance, Abram was wondering if the Lord would keep all His promises. He’s trusting in himself a bit, isn’t he?
Sometimes we too are distracted in this life – maybe more so in our day and age than during the time of Abram. The Lord doesn’t appear to us in visions, He doesn’t come down and speak to us as visibly as He did to Elijah, Jeremiah and the other prophets, or even Abram. It’s harder for us to hear the ‘still, small voice’ of the Lord. Instead, very often, we listen to the voices of those around us. We even listen to our own voice and determine what we think is best and what we know is best, rather than listening to what the Lord is trying to tell us. There’s a danger in that. We learn this morning a word of warning. The prophet Jeremiah declared and he tells us this morning, "This is what the LORD says: ’Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD’"(JEREMIAH 17:5). I am sure that each one of us in our lifetime has seen that. We have trusted in ourselves so much and are confident that things are going to work out just as we have planned them that our hearts are turned away from the Lord. We’ve gone down our own path and we found that path isn’t always the right path. For our plans don’t always work out the way we planned. Our expectations and goals aren’t exactly what we expected because the Lord has different plans in mind. We learn that word of warning – not to put too much trust in ourselves.
We also learn a word of encouragement this morning – to trust in the Lord. That was what the Lord is trying to get Abram to do – to see that ‘Yes, you have that nagging doubt in your heart, but trust in me.’ After all, the Lord had never forsaken Abraham and when we look back, the Lord has never forsaken us. Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight"(PROVERBS 3:5,6). What a word of encouragement that is for us. As we have seen the times when we’ve trusted our own understanding and gone down the crooked path, the Lord says, ‘Lean on Me and My understanding and your paths are straight.’
We learn the reason for rejoicing too, don’t we? Like Abram, like David, like all the prophets of God – they looked back at their life and realized how the Lord had protected them, how the Lord had provided for them. It’s no different for you and I or any believer today. When we honestly look back, we may see some difficult times – some of those times when we had to go over many mountains of trials and tribulations – but we also see that the Lord was always there with us. Joshua was the next leader after Moses and he was the one who brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land. When he came to the end of this life, what did he say? He said the same thing that you and I can say at any time in our life. "Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled"(JOSHUA 21:45). God’s promises are good and He fulfills every one of them for us. We’re reminded that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of the heavenly lights. Boldly and confidently we can say, as the Lord tells us this morning in our text, the Lord is our shield and reward. The Lord is a comforting shield for us in our earthly living that is fraught with distress and earthly troubles and sorrows. And then the Lord is
II. An undeserved reward in our eternal living
We go back to Abram and we see that nagging concern of his is that the Lord had promised him many things and the Lord had done many things but he was still waiting for a son. Abram was still wanting for his own flesh and blood to inherit his possessions. He was still waiting for a descendant. 4Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." Once again the Lord says to Abram, ‘you are going to have an heir. You’re going to have descendants…not just one or two but quite a few.’ 5He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." (The stars still haven’t been counted to this day. There are too many!) Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." You can picture the Lord taking Abram outside the tent, looking up at the sky. They are seeing the wonders that are there – looking at all the stars that are beyond number – and the Lord says to Abram, ‘Those will be the number of your descendants.’ What happens? After the Lord takes Abram by the hand and drags him outside the tent and says, ‘Here is my promise to you that I made and now I will make it again.’
In the last verse of our text, 6Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. In that short sentence you and I learn a lot of things. Abram believed because the Lord caused him to believe. Abram believed in this eternal promise of God.
We’re going to see in the life of Abram that it was not of his own doing, was it? The reward of descendants was going to be an undeserved reward. Yes, he was concerned that he would not have descendants. After all, when he left his father he was seventy-five years old. Ten years had passed so you can see his concern. He was so concerned that when the Lord said you are going to have as many descendants as stars in the sky, that he and Sarai, his wife, devised a plan. In order to make sure the promise of God would be carried out, Sarai gave to Abram her handmaiden in order that they would have children, that they would have descendants. As you read that account, it caused no end of grief for the rest of his life. We also know that in spite of Abram’s interference the Lord blessed Abram and Sarai with many children. We see that Abram believed. It was credited to him as righteousness, not of his own doing, but undeserved. We learn what it means to trust in God.
God does make us many promises and He keeps them all. It’s a little bit harder sometimes for us to understand that, to believe it. Today the Lord reminds us that it is not of our own effort, our own desire that any of us would be here at all – that any of us are believers. It’s purely and simply by God’s amazing grace. We’re like Abraham. We’re born into this world as enemies of God and we have nagging doubts in our heart until the Lord takes us by the hand and drags us to his altar. Through baptism with the washing of the water and the Word God makes us His children. We learn a word of warning once again. We can’t stand before the Lord and say, ‘Look at how much I believe. Look at how good I am.’ Instead, we say with Isaiah, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away"(ISAIAH 64:6). We don’t deserve to stand before God and yet He makes us deserving by His free and undeserved grace.
The Lord prepares for us an undeserved reward in heaven itself. We also learn His word of encouragement – encouraged that the Lord has made us His children; encouraged that the Lord does fulfill His promises; encouraged that the Lord does give us what we do not deserve – He gives us a place in heaven rather than a place in eternal destruction. From Revelation we read these words, "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. (We know that verse very well – another undeserved reward.) Then he adds, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death"(REVELATION 2:10b, 11). He says to you and I as believers that when Judgement Day comes, it comes and goes and you and I spend eternity with our Savior with an undeserved eternal reward, with a crown of life forever. This fact alone gives us reason to rejoice – reason to rejoice that you and I who don’t deserve anything have been given everything; to realize, yes, there are unpleasant things that you and I face in this life but there’s also a great glory yet to be revealed in heaven for each one of us. It doesn’t depend on our strength. It doesn’t depend on our worthiness or merit. It doesn’t depend on us buying our way into heaven. Again, it’s by God’s grace. In the book of Romans, chapter four, (if you get a chance this week, look that one up) Paul talks about Abraham and many of the men of faith in the Old Testament and how it was credited to them as righteousness, namely as our text says, ‘Abram believed and he was saved.’ As chapter five begins, Paul tells us why they were saved. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God"(ROMANS 5:1,2). By God’s grace through the work of Christ, we rejoice! We rejoice today. We rejoice everyday even in the midst of sadness because the Lord is our shield. He is our very great reward.
No matter what we face in this life the Lord tells us He is our comforting shield. When the slings and arrows of Satan come pouring down on us, we raise up that shield of the Lord our God to protect us and encourage us and comfort us. When we think that life offers us a mountain that we can’t overcome, we raise up that shield of the Lord our God and we are reminded of His comfort. We are also reminded of our great reward that is yet to be revealed in each one of us…that we look beyond this life into the gates of heaven itself and we see that the Lord is our undeserved reward for eternal living. These are the promises of God and these are the plans of God. Though you and I make many plans and they don’t always come out the way we want, the Lord has simple plans for us. We listen to Jeremiah. ’’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ’plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’"(JEREMIAH 29:11). This is the Lord our God, our comforting shield for our earthly living, our undeserved reward for our eternal living who has plans for us, our hope and a future. The Lord is our shield and our very great reward. Amen.
Pastor Timm O. Meyer
