The Covenant promise unveils ; “Faith and the journey of blessing”

Today ,I want to share with you a real story of a man by the name of Chua Ah Wah. This story was told to me during a recent seminar.

Mr Chua,-- like most fathers, wanted to give his children the best possible education. --Even though Mr Chua is a non-believer, he believes that the Christian school will provide a better education for his children. And so he sends his daughter to the Paya Lebar Methodist Girls School.

One day, his daughter came home and was excited to share what she heard from the chapel that day.

“Dad, I learned from Chapel that Jesus is the only one who saves. The rest are false gods.”

You can imagine Mr Chua's reaction. -- He was furious and told his daughter never to say this again. It was not long after that Mr Chua’s wife experienced an eye problem. She had blurry vision. Despite being a traditional Chinese man, Mr Chua believes the best cure for his wife will be through Western medicine.

He brought his wife to the Western doctors, and to his dismay, --the doctor informed him that they could not treat his wife.

Mr. Chua was dejected but he was determined to do whatever it took to heal his wife.

--At that time, he remembered what his daughter had said before.

“If this God truly saves then I will go and check out if this God can truly heal my wife”

He brought his wife to this church , Grace Assembly Church.

According to his grandson, the church had a missionary pastor at that time.

The pastor prayed over Mrs Chua, and when he asked her how her sight was, she replied that she saw a blurry picture with 3 lights.—Both Mr and Mrs Chua were disappointed.

In God’s grace, after 3 days, Mrs Chua regained her sight.

You will not expect the drastic action Mr Chua did after that.

He took out all the idols in his house and brought them to an open field to burn them. When the villagers confronted him about his action, he proclaimed,

“ These are false gods; only Jesus is the true God.”

That personal encounter started Mr Chua’s faith journey.

—He dedicated his life to Christ and began a journey of faith. Mr Chua was a faithful believer and prayed every day for his family.

Many years later, Mr Chua became a grandfather. His grandson said he was a naughty boy and walked away from his faith during his teenage years.

His grandson came to know that Mr Chua prayed for him during that period.

After 4 years of prayer and intercession, his grandson finally returned to the Lord and rededicated his life to Christ. Subsequently, his grandson enrolled in Singapore Bible College.

His grandson also recalled that his grandfather would prayed for him every day when he was in Bible College. He has a simple prayer and that is —--for God would use his grandson for his glory.

Mr Chua has since returned to the Lord. His grandson's would say this about his grandfather.

“My grandfather is an unsung hero. To many, he was just a normal man. But I know he is a faithful man who prays and follows God faithfully”

There are probably many more Mr Chua out there that we do not know.

Like Mr Chua, we will look at a known hero, a man that is known by his faith ; Abram

We will see How God first called Abram and how Abram navigated through his faith after receiving God's call.

We will see how A call, a Covenant promise, unveils Abram's Faith.

God Calls Abram to “go from your country, your kindred, and your father’s house to a land where I will show you.”

‌To understand what the call means, we need to understand what country ,kindred and family house means to Abram. We probably have many questions like “Abram moved from Ur to Haram. Why did God say this to Abram since he is already away from his country , … …or was it ?

Due to time constraints, I will quickly trace through Genesis.

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1. Abram has two brothers; Nahor and Haran. It was recorded that Haran passed on in Gen 11.

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2. Terah (Abram’s father) took Abram , Lot and Sarai left Ur and settled in Haran.

There was no mentioned about Nahor.

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3. We know this through (Genesis 24 and 29) the city of Nahor ,where Abram brother stay, is part of Haran.

And so Haran is where Abram’s kindred is . ---We also know that Abram considered his country as Haran.

Why is this important ? Because It represents Abram three spheres of influence:

The spheres of influence represents what Abram must leave behind, from the broad (from country) <Click> to the specific<Click> (your father’s household).

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God wanted Abram to leave everything, both his past and future, and place his trust in God.

---Abram obeyed and travelled from Haran to Shechem (approximately 640-900km, depending on how you measure it. Regardless, it is very far).

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The narrative did not end there; it was just the beginning.

In the following narratives, We will witness the ups and downs of Abram’s Faith Journey

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The Bible did not explain much about how the famine affected the people in the land of Canaan. In Gen 12:10-20 that Abram and his household went down to Egypt to sojourn there because the famine was severe in the land.

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When Abram went to Egypt, He told his wife to tell people that he was her brother.

The ruse was half true, as Sarai is indeed his sister

Why did He devise such a lie? It is because Abram feared two things.

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1) Sarai's beauty will draw attention to powerful men and

2) that these men do not abide by the ethics of his God, and they will murder him and take her for a wife.

📷Abram ruse would have

1) save his life but will jeopardized the future by placing risk to Sarai, the mother of the “promised nation”.

2) Cause Pharaoh’s house to suffered because they became guilty unknowingly.

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Abram waivered in his faith because he could not trust God enough to deliver him through the situations, firstly through the famine and secondly, the hands of men who did not abide by God’s ethics.

📷The Bible is full of stories contrasting the elected from the non-elect.

In this narrative (Gen 13:6-18) , we learn that the land could not support both Abram's and Lot's dwelling together.

When Abram gave a chance for Lot to choose his “land”, Lot chose the supposedly better area, Jordan Valley.

From the bible passages, we observed Lot’s character. ---Lot initiates only scant action. We see these through the following examples.

Lot does not think much about the implications of his actions when he selects Sodom as his preferred location, even though the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord (Genesis 13:13).

In Genesis 19:8, Lot offered his daughter to the Sodomites when the men from Sodom asked him to bring his visitor out to us so that they may know them.

Abram, in contrast, perceives beyond the visible

He allowed Lot to select the land first and said that he would go in the opposite direction whenever Lot chose.

Abram, ignored the visible, places his trust in God to bring about the fulfillment of His promises.

📷In Genesis 14, it is a narrative of two warring coalitions of Kings.

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The Eastern Alliance (led by Chedor-laomer, King of Elam, Am-raphel, King of Shin-ar Ari-och, King of Ella-sar, and Tidal King of Goiim) will receive tribute from the Western kings. For 12 years, the Eastern Alliance received tributes from the Western Alliance, but in the 13 years, the Western Alliance rebelled.

In the 14th year, the eastern kings came to attack and sack the cities. The victors, Eastern alliance, took the goods and food of the cities and human captives. We read that Lot was one of the captives that the Eastern Alliance captured.

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On receiving the news that his nephew was captured, Abram made plans to rescue him.

With 318 men, Abram defeated the Eastern alliance. Abram not only managed to save his nephew Lot, he also took back the possessions, women, and people from the Eastern Alliance.

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When Abram returned from his victory over the Eastern Alliance, the King of Sodom approached him and said to Abram.

“Give me the persons, but you can keep the goods for yourself”

Abram did not keep anything but returned everything back to the King of Sodom. ---He declared that he would not take anything that belonged to him; least God's blessing would be put in question.

---When Abram faced a massive army , he demonstrated courage and faithful confidence that God would deliver him.

The bible did not go into the details on the strength of the two alliances. Looking at the maps of the country and the narrative, I would gather that the Eastern Alliance is a much bigger and stronger force.

The 318 men that Abram has ---is a realistic number for an armed force in ancient times. But it will also be a good guess that Abram forces is smaller in scale as compared to the Western alliance forces.

---Yet Abram trusted God for in protecting him and rescuing Lot . In the same story,we also see how Abram resisted the prospect of further enriching himself outside God’s provision.

Abram, answering God's call, embarked on a journey to the promised land. He faced numerous tests that challenged his faith.

He falls and then He gets up again.

---AND regardless if he waivered in his faith or triumph in his faith, He kept going back to God, ---keeping his faith affixed to God.

God, in His boundless grace, counted Abram as righteous.

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When God called Abram, He also gave Abram a promised

God promised Abram📷

· Land .

· Make him a great nation, and God will bless him and make his name great. .. “so that he will be a blessing” to those who bless him.

· Those who dishonor Abram, God will curse

· All the families of the earth will be blessed.

In the promise of land, name, the promise of “nation” or ”offspring” is the most elusive to Abram and Sarai as they are advanced in their age.

Yet Abram trusted God and acted upon the call. Abram obeyed God despite not fully seeing or experiencing God's promise.

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--- We know that the fulfilment of the promises will take a while to be fulfilled. In Genesis 12-15, we know that Abram was able to “peek” into some of the blessings that God has promised him.

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In the earlier part, Abram has gone to Egypt because of a severe famine. He lied to preserve his life by saying Sarai is his sister. We read how Pharaoh dealt favorably with him.

📷In Genesis 12:16 Pharaoh dealt well with Abram and enriched him with possession example sheep, oxen, male and female servants.

In the same narrative as Abram feared, Sarai was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

BUT God protected Sarai by inflicting Pharaoh’s house with great plagues.

The Bible records for us that Pharaoh ONLYgave orders for Abram and his household to be sent away.

God blessed Abram not because Abram was 100%faithful but because God is gracious and faithful to his promise.

📷In Genesis 14, when Abram returned after defeating the Eastern alliance, Melchizedek, king of Salem(=” Jerusalem”), brought out bread and wine (He was the priest of the God Most High), and he blessed Abram.

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What is the significance of this narrative?

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Remember in God’s promise to Abram, those who bless you shall be blessed.

📷In Genesis 14, we will observe the contrast of two types.

The first was Melchizedek, where he brought bread and wine and blessed Abram. Abram in turn blessed him and gave him a tenth of everything.

Then came King of Sodom. Not only did he not bless Abram but demanded Abram to give him the persons.

What was Abram’s respond?

Abram did not want to have any association with the King of Sodom. While we do not know if the King of Sodom has dishonoured him, we read in Chapter 19 that the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from heaven.

God’s promise to Abram is becoming clearer.

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There are also reference of Melchizedek in the later books of the bible. Who is this king Melchizedek ?

The name Malkî-ṣedek, means “king of righteousness”

while melek šālēm, means literally “king of peace”

This is the first occurrence in the Bible where the word priest is mentioned. And this is the only occurrence of priestly blessing in Genesis.

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There are many interpretations of who Melchizedek is. Some say he is depicted as the angel or a superior heavenly being; others maintain that he is a man but an especially anointed priest, even a high priest before God Most High.

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The identity of Melchizedek remains a question.

In Psalms 110:4, Hebrews 5:5-6 the bible gives us another view of who Melchizedek is.

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In these verses, Melchizedek is the type of Christ. The “Lord” was appointed to the head of a new order, having no predecessors.

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We catch a glimpse of God’s future plan to fulfill his promise that all families of the earth will be blessed by him.

📷Today we know the Covenant promise finds its fulfilment in Christ Jesus.

When God calls us his covenant promise.

Like Abram, we only need to have that faithful obedience,

---AND taking a page from Abram’s journey, it will be a journey of blessing.

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I want to come back to the story of Mr Chua.

His grandson finally graduated from SBC and became a small church pastor. God answered Mr Chua’s prayer, and his grandson did impact many lives through his many ministries. Some of us might know him. His name is Ps Edmund Chan.

Mr Chua did not live to witness how God would use his grandson. He is an unsung hero who believed in Faiththrough prayer and “impacted” the future generation to come.

How is your journey so far?‌

Many (if not all) of us are called to SBC for some reason. Suffice it to say that we all have sacrificed just to be here in this seminary school.

We have left the comfort of the world to pursue something higher.

‌Ultimately, we will return to our workplace or our ministries

Some will become pastors of mega-churches, and some will be out in the field witnessing/doing ministry for God.

Our path will all be different and possibly long drawn. It will be met with challenges.

At times, we stand like giants of faith. At times, we might falter and get discouraged.

BUT Our call is to have that faithful obedience like Abram.

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Broughton Knox , a former principle of Moore College said this

“God is not interested in one hundred percentism”

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I would like to add to this quote that He is interested in 100% allegiance to Him.

When we do that, God's faithful promise and blessing will come to pass.

Thank you.

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