God’s Promise to Abraham

Introduction

I’m pastor Craig, I am also your friend.

- God brought us here

We are going to be looking today at Genesis 15:1-6 and Luke 3:8 as we consider God’s promise to Abraham.

I was going to preach on a totally different topic, but I felt called to make a last-minute switch this week.

You can’t believe everything that your read on the internet.

I wanted to share with you that we can trust God’s promises and His plan.

So, I started looking around on the internet for illustrations about God knowing the Big picture.

I found an illustration about an Architect named, “Sir. Christopher Wren”.

He either built or rebuilt St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Here’s the thing. I found 3 different sermon illustrations about this and they all contradict one another in different ways.

I like them all, so rather than ruin it by looking up what actually happened, if anyone even knows, I’m just going to share all 3 with you.

1)

Sir Christopher Wren, the most famous architect of his time, built St. Paul’s Cathedral.

He began in 1676 and it took him 35 years to build it.

He was 44 when he began and was 79 when he completed it in 1711.

Sir Christopher Wren built St. Paul’s’ Cathedral, but actually he didn’t lay a single stone—other people did that. He directed its construction.

In the same way, God did not “write the Bible”—He used human authors.

But He inspired them. He was the “architect” behind its construction.

Every stone in St. Paul’s Cathedral was there because Sir Christopher Wren intended it to be there.

And the Bible is as God intended it to be.

There is a famous story of the days when Sir Christopher Wren was building St. Paul’s Cathedral.

2)

In 1675, some nine years after the terrible fire in London, Sir Christopher Wren himself laid the first foundation stone in what was to be his greatest architectural enterprise, the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It took him thirty-five long years to complete this task, and when it was done he waited breathlessly for the reaction of Queen Anne. After being carefully shown through the structure, she summed up her feelings for the architecture in three words: “It is awful; it is amusing; it is artificial.” Upon hearing these words, Wren heaved a sigh of relief and bowed gratefully before his sovereign. How could this be? The explanation is simple In 1710, the word awful meant “awe-inspiring,” the word amusing meant “amazing,” and the word artificial meant “artistic.” What to our ears might sound like a devastating criticism were, in that time, words of measured praise

3)

On one occasion he was making a tour of the work in progress. He came upon a man at work and asked him: “What are you doing?” The man said: “I am cutting this stone to a certain size and shape.” He came to a second man and asked him what he was doing. The man said: “I am earning so much money at my work.” He came to a third man at work and asked him what he was doing. The man paused for a moment, straightened himself and answered: “I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

Hearing 3 different stories about Sir Christopher Wren building the cathedral might raise some doubt about what is real and what is made up.

You can research all of that, and you may or may not find the answer but one thing is for certain, you can go to London England and look at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Today, we are looking at an event in Genesis where Abram is experiencing doubt and God points him to look at something real by having him go and look at the stars.

There are times in our lives when it is difficult to know what is right or what is going to happen but during those times, it is good to lean into God’s promises and the real things that He shows us.

Genesis: 15

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”[a]

3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”

4 But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”

5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

6 And he believed the Lord, and the Lord[b] reckoned it to him as righteousness.

God's Promise in the Face of Doubt:

Abraham is in a season of doubt, wondering how the promise can come to pass (v. 2-3).

God’s timing can be a weird thing.

Abraham knew what God had said he was going to do in his life, but it looked impossible now.

Some of us might look at Abraham and think lucky guy, because he knew exactly what God wanted him to do.

That can be a big struggle in our lives.

But here we have Abraham, and He believes in God and knows what God has planned for his life, yet he still goes through a time of doubt.

I watched a short testimony from John Piper the other day.

I don’t agree with everything that John Piper believes or teaches but I believe some of the same things.

He said that he thought God was calling him to be a doctor but then he got sick and had to drop out of school and at that time, he was getting encouragement from listening to pastors and he changed his mind and thought God was calling him to be a pastor.

His point was that you can be wrong about what you think God is calling you to do.

Even if your are right though, God’s timing doesn’t always align with our expectations.

Who hasn’t prayed to God asking for some clue as to what is going on?

The Power of a Visual Reminder:

God doesn’t just speak a promise; He gives Abraham a visual—a night sky full of stars.

I still get a feeling of inspiration when I look up at the stars.

Not because I think of God’s promise to Abraham, but maybe I will think about that next time.

Are there things in your life that you can look at that reassure you of God’s promises?

There are signs and things that I look at in life that help to remind me of God’s direction.

I think that I talk about those things too much sometimes and a lot of it is personal.

Having something relatable in front of us that we can look at can be helpful.

Faith Accounted as Righteousness:

Abraham believes (v. 6), despite the impossibility of the situation, and God counts it as righteousness.

Notice that Abraham is righteous because of his faith and not because of his works.

What you truly believe gets echoed in what you do.

God calls us to have faith despite circumstances.

In Luke 3:8, we see John the Baptist speaking and he says something very interesting:

Luke 3: 8 Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

- How can God raise up children to Abraham from stones?

- I think it’s because Jesus is the stone foundation of our faith.

- The promise to Abraham is fulfilled his time because he has a biological son with Sarah

- But it is also fulfilled in all Christians.

- Everyone who believes in Jesus becomes a child of Abraham.

What does John mean when he tells the crowds to bear fruits worthy of repentance?

A repentant person is a changed person.

To be repentant is to reorient your life towards things that bring joy to God.

A transformed and repentant person will grow the fruits of the spirit in their lives.

John told a lot of people to repent.

He was a bold man. Most people don’t just go around doing that and the ones who do are sometimes thought to be a little odd.

The Nature of God's Promises:

God's promise to Abraham is not just about descendants but about a covenant relationship.

A covenant is an agreement between 2 people, or parties.

You can have a covenant where both sides agree to hold up their end of the deal.

But you can also have covenants where only one side has to.

The covenant between God and Abraham was a one-sided covenant.

I have always found that very strange but it’s a covenant about what God will do.

There are never any conditions in Genesis regarding the covenant.

The blessings that are promised to Abraham are available to anyone who puts their trust in Jesus.

We have a great inheritance as believers.

But God’s promises can take time.

It’s easy to believe in what you see or hear with your senses.

God reveals himself to our hearts.

But that requires faith.

God asked Abraham to believe a lot even when it would be very very difficult to do so.

The mysteries of the faith leave space for us to believe.

If faith was easy, it wouldn’t be faith.

I like a quote that I found recently from Richard Rohr

“The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is control. You must leave the Garden, where there are angels with flaming swords to keep you from ever really returning. You must leave the womb to be born.”

I think Rohr is right. Faith is often moving forward despite our feelings of doubt because we trust in what God has revealed to us.

The leaving the garden part gives me mixed feelings because I think of the garden as where people walked with God, but it is true about having to leave one kind of comfortable place to go to a different type of comfortable place.

You can tell what any person really believes not by what they say they believe but by what they do.

In colder climates, people sometimes need to drive over frozen rivers. The first time someone does it, they may be terrified, but if they trust the process, knowing the ice is thick enough, they’ll make it to the other side… as long as the ice is actually thick enough and they drove on it the proper way for the conditions and weight of their vehicle.

Connection: Abraham had to trust God’s promise like someone trusting the ice beneath them. It didn’t always feel secure, but God’s word was solid, and Abraham trusted that God would lead him across to the other side.

Are lives are all like that, aren’t they?

You

If you are struggling with doubt right now, I fully encourage you to bring it to God and lay it down at his feet.

Trust in God’s promises.

Look for the amazing thing. I mean, even without this story, the sky is amazing.

Do you ever just go outside and look at the stars and think about how massive and amazing our universe is?

Are there areas in your life where you have been holding back from doing what God is calling you to do?

Has God been tapping on your heart to do something for a while that you haven’t done yet?

What about control?

We all struggle with what parts of our lives to control and what parts to put in God’s hands.

Believe me, I get it wrong as much as anyone with things that I feel like I need to control.

Abraham might have been trying to control his feelings so that he wouldn’t feel disappointed if God brought no child.

As someone without children, I find that completely understandable.

I don’t have Abraham’s promise though, so I’m not expecting such a miracle.

Although, life does have those kinds of surprises sometimes.

Talk to Anne.

Conclusion

like Abraham, we are called to walk by faith, not by sight.

As believers, we are heirs of that same promise (Galatians 3:29).

The God who promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars is the same God who promises to be with us, guide us, and fulfill His purpose in our lives.