God’s Covenant with Abraham

I want to first begin with the call of Abraham. Abraham was originally named Abram. Abram came from Ur of the Chaldeans, which was a prosperous city in Mesopotamia(modern day Iraq). The culture was very polytheistic(do you know what that means?). There was a great chance that Abram was worshiping false gods before he received this divine call from God. In the book of Joshua, he talks about Abrahams father who worshiped other gods. So this is likely how Abram was too.

We have the beginning of this story of Abraham in Genesis 12:1 “1 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.”

There are a couple of reasons why this would have been such a radical call that Abraham is answering. First of all, he is answering the call of the true God. He would have to leave behind his false religion. Secondly, he is leaving behind wealth and prosperity. And with this come great comfort. He is going to be stepping into the unknown to follow a God who none of his family believed in.

We start off very strong in this section with promises though. Yes, there is the unknown, but God has promised to do things for Abram. The first of which is God is going to show him where he needs to go. This is a promise from God. Abram must step out in faith, but God is going to follow through with his promise to show him where he is to go.

What are ways that we should step out in faith in our everyday life?

Why do you think God often calls people to leave comfort before revealing His full plan?

But that wasn’t the only promise. If you keep looking, in verse 2 God promises blessings. Genesis 12:2 “2 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.”

God then promises to make a great nation of Abraham. Who comes from Abraham? If we look at Luke chapter 3, we have a more comprehensive lineage for Jesus. When you read it, please understand that it is not a complete one, but one that is theologically comprehensive. Meaning that it covers events and main characters found in scripture that are painting a timeline to Jesus Christ. This promise comes to fruition with Jesus. He is the final piece of this “great nation”. This terminology is actually a callback to the chapter before to the story of the tower of Babel when the people tried to make a name for themselves. Now, it is God’s working that is going to make a great nation and not the people.

This is how Abraham’s name will be great. It is great through his offspring. First through Isaac and Jacob and Judah. All the way through David and then all the way through Jesus. All carrying the name of the house of Abraham. His lineage changed the world. The blessing that God tells him he is going to be is through the coming of Jesus Christ.

How is Jesus Christ a blessing to not only us, but everyone?

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this verse but I want to look at verse 3 here too. Genesis 12:3 “3 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.”” Recently, this verse came into popularity because of an interview with Ted Cruz. Ted twists this and says that those who bless Israel will be blessed. But that is not what the promise of God says. The way that God promises this should not be taken as a geographical promise, but a promise of the sons of Abraham. So who are the sons of Abraham? Galatians 3:7 “7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”

So the promise is not relegated to a nation or a people group, but to all believers. To the sons and daughters of God.

Abraham got this promise from God, he trusted God, and he set out on this journey. He takes his wife, Sarah, and they go to the land of Canaan. It is here that God promises that he would give the land to Abrahams offspring. But, this isn’t an old fashioned Disney story where everything was hunky dory and they all lived happily ever after. No, there were issues.

This would make a good soap opera in a lot of ways. See, there was a famine in the land. To survive, they went down to Egypt. But, Abraham was afraid that the Egyptians would kill him because he was married to such a beautiful woman. So to protect himself, he thought it would be a good strategy to tell them that she was his sister. Because of this, when they got there, Pharaoh’s men took her into his house.

But God actually caused problems for Pharaoh. In verse 17 it says that God afflicted him and brought plagues to them because of this. So, when Pharaoh figured out that Abraham lied to him, he kicked them out of Egypt.

Then, when they left Egypt, Abraham and Lot, who was his nephew that was with him, had herdsmen with them and they couldn’t get along. So they had to separate from each other. Abraham went back to the land of Canaan and Lot took the Jordan Valley. But, Abraham had to go and rescue Lot because he got caught up in this war that was going on around him. So Abraham had to take his men and attack to go and rescue the kidnapped Lot.

I’m telling you, this is better than most movies you can watch.

But then we get to a turning point the story of Abraham. So far, the promise that God has given Abraham has been centered around his lineage and his offspring. Well there is one little problem. He doesn’t have any children. Genesis 15:3 “3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.””

God then makes a covenant with Abraham, a promise, that his son will be his heir. But not only that, if you are able to number the stars in the sky, that is how many offspring he will have. And that he would possess the land. And to seal it, there was a sacrifice made. But, they would slaves for 400 years before they would inherit the land. And after the time of slavery, they would be better for it.

Now, when we think of covenants, we think of them as if/then promises. If you do this, then God will do that. But, in this case, what is required of Abraham for God to fulfill his part? Nothing. God fully takes on the vow of the covenant. The covenant does not depend on the righteousness of Abraham but only the righteousness of God.

This does not mean that Abraham was not a righteous man. He believe in God and believe that God would keep his promise. And because of that, God counted that to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:6 “6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

Things don’t go like Abraham wanted them to go though. He began to learn that trusting God meant more than trusting the promise but also trusting the timing. Abraham began to become impatient. His wife, Sarah, had not become pregnant. It has been 10 years since God’s promise. So Sarah told him to take her servant Hagar and use her to get pregnant. So he did. And she had a son named Ishmael.

Now, this must be the son that God had promised, right? Wrong! Ishmael is not the promised son that God would use to carry on the promises made to Abraham. But, how can this be? God has promised a son to Abraham, he is 86 years old when Ishmael is born. Sarah cannot bear children and is getting old. So surely this is God’s plan.

God had other plans.

We can agree that all children are a blessing from God and that no one child should be looked down upon for any circumstances. They are no less a human being than any other child. It doesn’t matter what country they were born in, what color they are, or the circumstance of their conception. They all matter and are all made in the image of God.

Ishmael was not a lesser human and it isn’t for any reason like this that he was not the means by which God continued the lineage of Abraham that would lead to the messiah coming from his line. The reason that God did not go this route is because Abraham did not trust in God’s plan. Although Ishmael was a valuable human being, he was not the son of the promise. This son would be Isaac.

This brings us to chapter 17 in Genesis. Time skips ahead another 13 years. God comes to Abram and reminds him of his covenant. He then tells him that there will be a sign of the covenant between them. And then God changes their names. He tells Abram that he will now be Abraham and Sarai will now be Sarah. God changes their identities. A man who once did not trust in the timing of God, now will trust. A woman who once believed she would never have children so she gave her husband to another woman, now will birth a child that would lead to the messiah. They were no longer their old selves but new creations.

God then promises them that she would give birth to a son who would bear the covenant of God. Of course, Abraham laughed at this because they were so old. But God kept his promise. He did not punish Ishmael for not being the son of the promise though. He would father 12 princes and make a great nation himself. But he was not the son of the promise who would carry the covenant of God.

How do we sometimes ‘settle for Ishmael’ instead of waiting for Isaac?

This is what we need to understand about these events and about Abraham. It is through Abraham and his offspring that God will save his people. Now, this prophecy is two fold. It is dealing with more in the immediate future with the people going into slavery in Egypt for 400 years and being brought out of slavery by Moses. But it is also more future oriented as well with the coming of Jesus, who is an offspring of Abraham, coming to save not only the Jewish people but also everyone who puts there faith and hope in him as Lord and savior.

And if you want a key verse in all of this:

Genesis 12:1–3 “1 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. 2 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. 3 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.””

And remember that all of the people of the earth will be blessed by him because of Jesus Christ.

Abraham’s story reminds us that faith isn’t about perfect obedience—it’s about persistent trust. He stumbled, waited, and doubted, but he kept walking with God. And through his faith, the whole world was blessed in Christ. We walk the same road today—trusting God’s promises even when we can’t see the path.