Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Genesis

Genesis 15:7-21 06/09/02

Intro:  Author and scholar, Bruce Shelley, reminds us that today, we define a host of relationships by contracts. We make contracts with the phone co, the bank, the department store, even the gas station. The contract, formal or informal, lists the responsibilities of the parties involved and the consequences when those responsibilities are not met.
 
 God, however, did not form a contract with Abram or with the church. He formed a covenant. There is a difference. Contacts are broken when one of the parties fails to keep his promise.

 Lets say you want to buy a car but don't have enough money to pay cash. You get a loan. Both you and the Bank sign the contract. The bank agrees to pay the car dealer the $15,000 for the car and you agree to pay them back at the agreed upon amount and schedule. If you fail to keep to the agreed upon schedule the bank will come and repossess your car and wreak havoc with your credit history. The bank really doesn't care about you, it cares about the money you promised to repay.
 
  In Isa. 49:15  God asks 'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!'

 A covenant made by God is more like the ties of a mother to her child than it is a contract to repay a loan. If a child fails to show up for dinner, the parent's obligation, unlike the bank isn't canceled. The parent finds out where the child is and makes sure he/she is cared for.

 When God makes a covenant our failure does not destroy the relationship. God's covenants are His unconditional commitment to love and care for us. And this is what we see in our text this morning. God made an unconditional covenant with Abram. And as we will see, God has made a similar covenant with all those who by faith believe Him. But I get ahead of myself.  First lets look at the covenant God made with Abram.

Read: Genesis 15:7

 Here in vs 7 God reassures Abram..that He is God and His will, His purposes, His promises will be fulfilled. God did this by reminding Abram that while he was going about his business in Ur without even the tiniest notion of God or His plan,  God chose him and called him out of Ur and promised him a new land.

Read: Genesis 15:8

 God, this land is already inhabited. I have been here 10 years and have traveled all around like you have said, but none of the land is mine. I don't own any of it. How can this land become mine and my descendants? I still don't understand. Not only does this show Abram's humility in confessing to God that he is in the dark as to how the land will become his. If you listen closely to his words, it shows Abram's passion to receive this wonderful yet unbelievable promise of God.

 Abram's heart, his passion, his desire was to obtain the land because it was promised to him by God. He wanted what God promised him. Not for what it was, primarily, but because God wanted him to have it. Remember PRESENCE before PRESENTS.

 Now, the land has both physical and spiritual significance. Abram would possess the literal land through his natural descendants. But Israel would never occupy all of it.

 However, through his spiritual seed, that is those who are his descendants by faith, Abram and all Christians can fully possess the land through it's spiritual significance. The spiritual significance of the land is the presence of God. Israel always understood that the land was associated with God's presence with them, represented physically by the Tabernacle and the Temple.

 For the church today, we know that the Land, fullness of God's presence is not found in the Tabernacle or the Temple or even the church building. The fullness of God's presence is manifested by the indwelling Holy Spirit. All that God intends us to have in Christ Jesus..victory,  power, abundance and fruitfulness comes by the Holy Spirit. The spiritual significance of the land is the blessing of God's presence through the power of the Holy Spirit. And it, the promise and He the Spirit, is already ours, because we belong to Jesus Christ.

 Abram wanted the land because God wanted him to have it. Do you long to have what God has promised You? Not because of what it is, but because of who makes the promise? Then, humbly come before God asking, pleading with Him to fulfill His promises to you. Ask Almighty God to fill you to overflowing with His Holy Spirit, so that you may experience the blessing of His glorious presence?

 Abram desperately wanted what God had to give him, but he didn't see how it was going to happen. He cried out 'God, how can I know?'

Read: Genesis 15:9-11

 God made a covenant, a promise to Abram.  Covenants were not new to this time in history. Like contracts that are signed by the parties involved to seal the deal, a covenant has a symbolic act that ratifies the agreement made.

 In Abram's society, the most common way to ratify an agreement, would be to kill an  animal, split it in half, and then both patries would walk through the two pieces. Signifying that if either of them breaks the terms of the agreement, they would suffer the same fate as this animal.
 
 When God ratifies His covenant, He too uses a special ritual act to show His commitment to the promises made.

 But how can we be sure that God will keep up His end of the deal? That is what Abram asks here in our text. Again, he is not doubting God  but he just doesn't understand. And neither do we when we ask...

 God, how can I know that I will experience your presence?
 God, how can I know that You will be my shield and my great reward?
 God how can I know that you will never leave me or forsake me?
 God, how can I know that I will have victory over sin?
 God, how can I know that I will have eternal life?
 God, how can I know?

 God replies...because in one special act, I have given the life of my only Son. His death on the cross ratifies my covenant of grace with you. How do I know that? Because of vs 17. But again, I get ahead of myself.

Read: Genesis 15:12-16

 Abram falls asleep. And God gives him a glimpse of how Abram's descendants will come to possess the land. It is not a happy picture as God shows Abram that his descendants will go to a strange land (Egypt) and will be enslaved and mistreated there.
BUT, God shows him that their oppressors will be punished (plagues) and they will leave the land with great wealth. (exodus) He then tells Abram that he will die with the blessing of old age and will rest with his fathers.

 Then God says something quite interesting and in it He shows His great patience with sin and sinful people. This is often brought up to Christians...Is God just when He had Israel kill all the good people living in the land just so Israel could move in?
Well, this text reminds us that the people living in the land were not good people. They rejected the authority, even the reality of the One True God. They were morally bankrupt and were obsessed with idolatry and evil practices. God gave them over 400 years to repent, to turn from their evil ways and turn to Him. But they never did. God judged them through Israel taking the land away from them. Remember, whether the OT or the NT...or now, God in the Bible says the wages of sin is death.

 OK, nice history lesson but what has that to do with me..today? Well, when you come to faith in God through Christ, when you seek the promises God has made to you, God's Word reveals a glimpse of your life of faith as well.

 He tells you that you will experience trials even though you are a Christian and His beloved child.
 He tells you that you will battle with being a slave to sin.
 He tells you that you will experience victory over sin and abundant blessing when you are obedient to His Word.
 And He also tells you that when you die  you will be blessed by being in the presence of God, your Father, for all eternity.
 And like Abram we ask 'But God how can I know it?'

Read: Genesis 15:17-21

 But God, how can I know it? God answers, because it doesn't depend on you,  it depends on Me. I will alone ratify this agreement. You have no part in it.

 Abram woke up to see a smoking pot and blazing torch pass between the animals. Abram knew  that Almighty God was making this promise to him. And he believed. In hindsight, we know the smoke of the furnace and the light of the torch were the same smoke and fire that hovered over the ark of the covenant when Israel wandered through the wilderness. They represented the presence of God in the midst of His people.

Conclusion

 The covenant made with Abram by God is not unlike the covenant of grace God makes with His children. Like the covenant with Abram, God alone  ratifies His covenant of grace with us.  The special act which sealed God's  purchase of the church, of all Believers, was the blood of His only Son, Jesus. We were not parties to this deal. It was God the Father, and God the Son, witnessed and empowered by God the Holy Spirit. We only receive the benefits.

 Once chosen by God, once called by God, once justified by God, once sanctified by God, we can choose to live in and abide by the covenant of God or we can wander away. But we still remain the children of God.

 Our salvation, therefore, is not dependent upon our actions or our ability to live sinless lives. Sin will take us outside of God's blessings but it does not break God's covenant of salvation with us. It does not separate us from the love of God or our relationship with Him. Remember last week..Romans 8..nothing will ever separate us, believers, from the love of God in Christ Jesus. NOTHING!

 That is God's covenant, His promise ratified by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son.

 And understand that entrance into this covenant of salvation is not by faith in religion, even faith in Christianity as the right religion. But by faith in Jesus and his death on the cross.

 Understand also that those who totally walk away from their faith, from Christianity, had their faith
     in the church,
    in religion,
    in the pastor, 
    in their parents,
    in the good feelings they felt when they came to church
     or in something else,

 But their faith was never truly in the person of Jesus Christ and in His work on the cross.

Are you in this covenant with God? Because that  is where salvation is found, and it's the only place salvation is found. How do you come under the covenant blessing of God? By  turning from your life of sin to a life of faith in Jesus Christ and in nothing else.

Then you can know:

    That you are in a right relationship with God.
    That you are his child forever
    That he will carry you though life's trials
    That you can live in the fullness of the Spirit
    That you can experience the blessing of God's presence.

Then you can know
     That you can have a future with God in heaven for all eternity.

In the face of the unbelievable, you can know, when you have faith in Jesus Christ.