ACT 4: COVENANT - ABRAHAM

PICTURE

The big story: The Lord God, through His Christ, is graciously building a kingdom of redeemed people for their joy and his own glory.

PICTURE

Today sermon will examine Abraham and the covenant God makes with him called the Abrahamic covenant.

GOD SEEKS

Genesis 12:1 ESV

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

WE DON’T SEEK GOD. HE AIN’T LOST.

Romans 3:11 ESV

no one understands; no one seeks for God.

John 6:44 ESV

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Ezekiel 34:16 ESV

I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

Luke 19:10 ESV

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

GOD SAVES

Genesis 12:1 ESV

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Genesis 12:2 ESV

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

Genesis 12:3 ESV

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

BY GRACE

Psalm 3:8 ESV

Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah

Ephesians 2:8 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

Ephesians 2:9 ESV

not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Titus 2:11 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

Romans 6:23 ESV

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

GRACE IN ABRAHAM’S LIFE

Acts 7:2 ESV

And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

Acts 7:3 ESV

and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’

Acts 7:4 ESV

Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

God called Abraham out of idolatry.

Joshua 24:2 ESV

And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.

God called Abraham out of idolatry.

Ur of the Chaldees was a city devoted to Nannar, the moon-god. Abraham did not know the true God, and had done nothing to deserve knowing Him, but God graciously called him;

John 15:16 ESV

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

Paul in writing to Titus clarifies everyone’s pre-salvific state;

Titus 3:3 ESV

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

Titus 3:4 ESV

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,

Titus 3:5 ESV

he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

Titus 3:6 ESV

whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

Titus 3:7 ESV

so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Was there anything good in us that moved the heart of God to save us? God forbid that we should indulge the blasphemous thought! – Spurgeon

God saves us by himself, from himself, unto himself, for himself.

THROUGH FAITH

The Old Testament does not use the word faith to describe Abraham but the word “believed.” However, the New Testament in

Galatians 3:9 ESV

So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

THROUGH FAITH

Is there a difference in having faith and believing? Yes and no. Faith is a noun. Do you remember how to the define of a noun? It is a person, place, thing, or idea. Faith is; according Ephesians 2:8, 9; “a gift of God.”

THROUGH FAITH

Believe, Believing, or Believed are all action verbs. Faith can only be seen in the action of believing. So when the Old Testament states that Abraham believed it is saying what James, Paul, and the whole of what our New Testament teaches; “faith without actions or works is dead.”

James 2:21 ESV

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

James 2:22 ESV

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;

James 2:23 ESV

and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

Abram believed the Lord.

This was the secret. It’s one thing to believe in the Lord, but what Abram did was he believed the Lord. Do you see that? In order to believe the Lord you have to believe in the Lord, but you can believe in the Lord and not believe the Lord.

Abraham was not saved by obeying God, his obedience proved his faith.

Sinners are not saved by faith plus works but by a faith that works.

Genesis 12:1 ESV

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Genesis 12:4 ESV

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

This call to forsake all is very much like the call of the gospel. Jesus said,

Matthew 10:37 ESV

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Mark 8:35 ESV

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

The gospel calls us to rest all our faith in the word of Christ, and nothing else!

Hebrews 11:8 ESV

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 11:9 ESV

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

Hebrews 11:10 ESV

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

We are not saved by making promises to God; we are saved by believing God’s promises to us.

It was God who graciously gave His covenant to Abraham and he responded with faith and obedience.

Genesis 15:6 ESV

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

The verse is quoted three times in the New Testament: Galatians 3:6; Romans 4:3; and James 2:23. The three key words are believe, counted, and righteousness.

Abraham believed God, which is literally, “Abraham said, ‘Amen, God!’ ”

The Hebrew word translated “believed” means “to lean your whole weight upon.”

Abraham leaned wholly on the promise of God and the God of the promise. The verbal form suggests an ongoing activity, i.e. he kept believing the promise, he kept relying on the Lord.

We are not saved by making promises to God but by believing the promises of God.

In the Gospel of John, which was written to tell people how to be saved (John 20:31), the word “believe” is used nearly 100 times. Salvation is the gracious gift of God, and it is received by faith (Eph. 2:8–9).

What was Abraham’s greatest need?

Righteousness.

This is the greatest need of people in our world today . . .

Romans 3:23 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:10 ESV

as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;

It is not enough to be “religious” God demands that we have perfect righteousness or He will not let us enter His heaven.

How did Abraham receive this righteousness?

He believed the Lord, and righteousness was imputed to him. “Impute” means “to put to one’s account.” On the cross, our sins were put on Jesus’ account

Isaiah 53:12 ESV

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

When you trust Him, His righteousness is put on your account and you stand righteous and forgiven before a holy God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

RELIGION: I obey, therefore I am accepted by God. THE GOSPEL: I am accepted through the costly grace of God, therefore I obey.

The Bible's not a record of good people earning God’s blessing but a record of bad people getting God’s blessing because Jesus earned it for us.

GOD SANCTIFIES

SEPARATION

The life of faith demands total separation from what is evil and total devotion to what is holy. As you study the life of Abraham, you will discover that he was often tempted to compromise; and occasionally he yielded.

God tests us in order to build our faith and bring out the best in us, but the devil tempts us in order to destroy our faith and bring out the worst in us.

The first step in sanctification is separation from the world and from our place in it by nature. Abram was called upon to leave his "kindred" as well as his "country."

God tests us in order to build our faith and bring out the best in us, but the devil tempts us in order to destroy our faith and bring out the worst in us.

Terah was an idolater, whereas Abram had become a believer in the living God, therefore it was expedient that Terah should be left behind for "how can two walk together except they be agreed."

Even the closest ties of human affection cannot unite souls which are sundered by opposite motives.

You don’t isolate yourself from your family and friends, but you no longer consider them your first love or your first obligation

Luke 14:26 ESV

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:27 ESV

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Your love for God is so strong that it makes family love look like hatred in comparison! God calls us “alone” and we must not compromise.

Isaiah 51:1 ESV

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.

Isaiah 51:2 ESV

Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.

EXAMINATION

Abraham stumbled because, when testing came, he forgot God how great God is.

Sometimes when we get overwhelmed we forget how big God is. AW Tozer

Amy Carmichael, missionary to India. “Sometimes the enemy comes in like a flood. But then is the time to prove our faith and live our songs” (Candles in the Dark).

The message for us who have believed God and trusted him for salvation and life is this:

Expect trials as a part of God’s plan, just as they were for Jesus who was made “perfect through suffering”

Hebrews 2:10 ESV

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Hebrews 5:7 ESV

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Hebrews 5:8 ESV

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

Hebrews 5:9 ESV

And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.

Peter compared the Christian’s trials to the testing of gold in the furnace;

1 Peter 1:7 ESV

so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

and the patriarch Job used the same image:

Job 23:10 ESV

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

God’s purpose in allowing test is not only to verify our faith but also to purify it.

God knows what kind of faith we have, but we don’t know; and the only way to know is to take examinations.

Abraham life shows us how examinations work out our sanctification.

There was no "altar" for Abram in Ur or Haran. It is not until there is real separation from the world that fellowship with God is possible. First there is obedience of faith and then communion and worship.

Genesis 12:5 ESV

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

Genesis 12:6 ESV

Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

Why did God allow the famine?

To teach Abraham and Sarah a lesson we must learn:

Tests often follow triumphs.

The famine was sent as a test of Abram’s faith; a famine in the Land of Promise. What a test of faith!

Abram did as we are all prone to do, he sought relief from all his difficulties, rather than profit by the test.

Observe that when this famine came there was no seeking counsel from the Lord. Abram was prompted by the wisdom of the flesh which ever suggests relief in means and human help, in fact, anything rather than in the living God. O, the inconsistencies of God’s children!

We can have faith in God with regard to our eternal interest, but we are often afraid to confide in Him for the supply of our temporal needs.

Here was a man who had journeyed all the way from Chaldea to Canaan on the bare word of Jehovah and yet was now afraid to trust Him in the time of famine. Sad that it should be so, but how like us today!

Once in Egypt, Abraham faced a new set of problems; for if you run away from one test, you will soon face another.

Once you enroll in “the school of faith,” you are not allowed to “drop out” just because of one failure.

God has purposes to fulfill in you and through you, and He will do all that is necessary to make you succeed.

The Lord disciplined Abraham in fulfillment of his Genesis 12 promise. Abraham was not a blessing in the life of Pharaoh but a curse. Pharaoh came under the judgment of God because of Abraham’s sin.

Conviction came through the words of Pharaoh in

Genesis 12:19 ESV

Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”

Take her and go! parallel the words of God’s call to Abram (“Leave your country … and go”; 12: 1). These words brought great conviction to the heart of Abraham as we see his immediate departure.

Abraham learned his lesson, repented, and

Genesis 13:1 ESV

So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.

Genesis 13:3 ESV

And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,

Genesis 13:4 ESV

to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.

When you disobey the will of God, the only right thing to do is to go back to the place where you left Him and make a new beginning .

Revelation 2:5 ESV

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

No failure is permanent in the school of faith.

Abraham didn’t have perfect faith but persevering faith.

Abraham was saved while in the Ur of the Chaldees. However, we see how faith can quickly falter. First steps of faith are not always giant steps, which explain why Abraham did not fully obey God.

What causes a person to persevere in believing?

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

A person perseveres in faith because God is the one who is preserving faith. Abraham’s story is one of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. However, it is a story of God’s perpetual faithfulness to his covenant.

Abraham perseveres because of Jehovah’s preservation.

Jehovah would not allow His purposes to be frustrated . . .

2 Timothy 2:13 ESV

if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

Throughout Abraham’s story the Lord shows himself faithful when Abraham is faithless. However, it was the Lord’s faithfulness that drew Abraham back to faithfulness.

God graciously overrules even the mistakes of those he has called, to their long-term benefit.

How beautiful it is to note that when we come to the New Testament Abram’s failure is not mentioned—

Hebrews 11:8 ESV

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.

his obedience in leaving Ur is thus singled out, but no notice is here taken by the Holy Spirit of his disobedience it had been "blotted out"!

HOW CAN WE CONFIDENCE THAT OUR FAITH WILL PERSEVERE TO THE END?

GOD SEALS

Our confidence originates in his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. Abraham is instructed by the Lord to set up a covenant ceremony.

Genesis 15:8 ESV

But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

COVENANT

God is saying, “Abram, I’m going to go through for both of us.” This is the gospel.

Salvation and the Christian faith is not a cooperative effort.

It is not, “God helps those who help themselves.” It is not a partnership. God comes through and says, “I will take upon myself the curse of the covenant for both of us. Abram, may I be cut off if I don’t do my part of the bargain, but Abram, may I be cut off if you don’t do yours.

Salvation and the Christian faith is not a cooperative effort.

Abram, I will bless you even if it means …” And it did. “… that I would have to die. centuries later, darkness came down again? You read about it in

Mark 15:33 ESV

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

CHRIST

God says over and over to the Hebrews, over and over in the Scriptures is, “The life of the firstborn is mine.”

CHRIST

The firstborn cattle are always sacrificed to God. The firstfruits of the grain are always sacrificed to God. More amazingly, God over and over and over in the Scripture says, “The life of your firstborn is forfeit.”

CHRIST

For example, the Passover. God brings down this sort of judgment on the Egyptians for their oppression and their wickedness and the enslavement and so on. Whose life is forfeit in that act of judgment? The firstborn.

CHRIST

During the Passover, the Jewish firstborn’s life must be forfeited unless a lamb is slain. The life of the firstborn must be forfeited unless you redeem it, unless there’s a sacrifice made, unless there’s a payment made.

CHRIST

Every Hebrew person understood what God was saying “There is a debt of sin every family owes to me.” Abraham response makes sense in light of this understanding. Had the Lord asked for Abraham to offer Sarah he would have known it wasn’t from the Lord.

CHRIST

There’s a debt every human being owes: the debt of sin. In a family-oriented, not individualistic, society the forfeiture of the firstborn was God’s way of saying, “No one is righteous. No, not one.” There’s a debt of sin everyone has to pay. When God says, “Offer up your son Isaac,” Abraham realized God was calling in his debt.

CHRIST

Abraham, no doubt, was conflicted between the command and the promise. He obeyed the command because he knew the Lord would keep His promise.

Genesis 22:8 ESV

Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

Abraham is obeying God’s command to climb Moriah through the promise of provision. He knew God would provide, He just didn’t know how. He knew the command and the promise weren’t at odds with each other, he just didn’t know that they were going to fulfill God’s objective.

Hebrews 11:17 ESV

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son,

Hebrews 11:18 ESV

of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

Hebrews 11:19 ESV

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

CHRIST

The story of Abraham and Isaac is more than a story showing us a father’s great faith but a story that shows us our Heavenly Father’s Faithfulness.

CHRIST

This Heavenly Father Son ascends this same mountain to redeem those who owed a debt they could not pay. He too would place His Son on the wood with no intention of staying His execution. No one spoke, except the Son who cried out My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.

How do we know that God will keep His covenant?

He took upon the curse that was due us because we broke the covenant.

Romans 8:32 ESV

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?