God’s Covenant for Our Hearts

God’s Covenant for Our Hearts

Genesis 15:1-21

Our text, I think, is one of the most overlooked chapters in Genesis, maybe even the whole Bible. Have you ever overlooked someone, maybe saw them as being less competent than what they actually wound up being? Maybe you have overlooked some object, possibly a tool or device, that wound up being exactly what you needed to perform or complete a particular job?

Maybe you’ve heard of Tom Brady, often considered the GOAT among NFL quarterbacks, winner of seven Super Bowls, which is the most ever by any player. In the 2000 NFL draft, he was drafted 199th, which means that he was overlooked 198 times, by all the other teams and even the one that finally drafted him. He was overlooked but his greatness wound up being apparent.

I hope the same thing will happen with this chapter and this story from the life of Abram.

I. What did God do here? A covenant for a divided heart

We need to look at this in terms of Abram’s time and then in terms of all time, what it meant then and what it came to mean forever. Verse 18 sums up what this chapter is about: God making a covenant (a promised agreement) with Abram.

1. In terms of Abram’s time (culturally)

At this moment in time, Abram (who would later become known as the man of faith) had a divided heart. There were doubts in his mind and those always come from a divided heart, having another love besides the Lord God alone. James 1:8 talks about the double-minded man who is unstable in all his ways. Later in the book, James says, “…purify your hearts, you doubled-minded.” (4:8) So God set out to deal with this “Yes and No” heart of Abram. (e.g., “Do you have trouble making up your mind?” “Well, yes and no.”)

Notice Abram didn’t have to have this idea of a covenant explained to him. When in verse 9 God commanded Abram to bring him, he didn’t ask, “Now, what’s all this about?” He understood. This was how people “cut” (lit v.18) a covenant. That’s what you did whenever you were entering into an agreement with someone and promising loyalty to them.

Today we have contracts, written contracts. In Abram’s time you had covenants that were acted out (drama). The specifics actually spelled out the penalties of unfaithfulness. What happened to the animals would happen to you if you did not remain loyal. Verse 10 shows us what he did: cut the animals in half and basically created an aisle. (Birds were too small to cut in half.)

Why did he do that? Because the participants in the covenant would walk between the pieces; that was how you “signed” (signified) the covenant. We can read about this in non-biblical sources but thankfully we have all we need in Jeremiah 34:18.

If you only get one thing, see one thing in this account, please notice who DID and DID NOT walk between the pieces. Culturally, when a king or lord entered into a covenant with his subjects, he did not pass between the pieces but his citizens did. Occasionally, you might find a good, benevolent king who would walk through with his people. That’s not what’s taking place here. Smoke and fire (Exodus 19:18) are symbols of God’s presence. God passes through the pieces alone. What does that mean? Not only will his bear his own responsibility to the covenant but if Abram was to fail (and he would) God would bear Abram’s judgment, and ours as well. Let this begin to sink into your heart.

2. In terms of all time (universally)

How does this relate to us? We see indicators, clues in this chapter that point us to what was yet to come. What does it tell us about the Lord Jesus Christ who would become the Savior of the world? Like Abram, the world was in darkness, a great and dreadful darkness. Abram’s sleep engulfed him in terrifying darkness, which “reflects a human emotion that is inspired most often by Yahweh’s presence” (Hughes, p. 231) It denotes a dread over one’s sinfulness, the lostness of one’s condition.

When the sin of the world was placed on Jesus, while hanging on the cross, He cried, “God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s covenant language, to be cast away into darkness. Isaiah 53:8 talks about Him being “cut off”—He bore the punishment that we deserved for our disloyalty. Jesus spoke of His death as a new covenant, as Jeremiah predicted.

II. Why did God do it? To unite our hearts

Remember Abram, the man of the doubtful, divided heart. We forget that before God called him from Ur of the Chaldeans, Abram and his family were idolators (Joshua 24:2). Relapse is not just something which a drug addict must deal with; all sinners must do that.

You see, our hearts (not our emotions) are the seat of our loves, what we most highly value and can’t live without. And we allow other loves—approval, comfort, control, power—to take the title to our hearts. They become our functional Saviors. When push comes to shove, we cling to them more than Jesus. So God acts out His covenant loyalty to us by walking between the pieces alone.

The goal is expressed in the prayer of Psalm 86:11: “…unite my heart to fear your name.” The fear of the Lord is not being scared of Him. Psalm 119:38 and Psalm 130:4 show us what “fear” means in relation to God. It’s not a desire to ran away from Him but to Him.

So, pray Psalm 86:11 and then preach to yourself Psalm 25:14: “The friendship, the sweet private councils of the Lord, are precisely for those whose hearts are united to fear God’s name.” Then preach to yourself the promise of the new covenant in Jeremiah 32:39, where God says, “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good.” Essentially, God is saying, “I will give them a single, united heart — that they may fear me forever.”

So what God says is true, we must begin to pursue. When you begin to find division in your heart, when you find yourself running from God instead to God, being afraid of being near Him instead of being afraid of being far from Him, declare this to yourself, and to your sin, and to Satan: “This resistance is not the new-covenant work of Jesus that he bought for me. No, it’s not. The new covenant work that he bought with his blood is a single, new, united heart that fears God, welcomes God, enjoys the friendship of God.”

Don’t give up. Don’t surrender like so many Christians around you have done and are doing. No, pursue what is true. Resist your resistance of God. Remember His covenant that He made to bring our hearts to Him.