Fear Not, God is Our Shield

Introduction

Slide

Have you heard the phrase “God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life!”?

It’s quite a common saying that said by many Christians in many churches.

But there is a problem with this saying. Yes, God does love us. Yes, I’m sure that God has wonderful plans for our lives. But that doesn’t mean that life is going to be easy. If we think that Christianity is only about God making our lives happy, problem-free, and easy, then boy are you in for a rough ride. Because life is going to get tough, life really sucks sometimes, you will face extremely difficult, heart-breaking, sometimes completely devastating situations in your life. And when you are faced with those situations, if all you think about God is someone who makes your life happy and easy, then you will either think that God has lied, abandoned you, or you might think God doesn’t exist at all.

But if we read the passage today, that is not the kind of God that the Bible describes. The Bible describes a God that deeply loves us, even more than anyone else on this planet. But it also describes a God who allows really difficult situations to come into our lives, situations that we cannot make sense of. The difficulties in our lives doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us, nor does it mean that God doesn’t exist.

What the passage today with Abraham shows us is that although God does allow hard things in our life, God is still our God even in those hard times. He is still with us and is our El Elyon - our Warrior God - in our difficult times. So what God commands us through the passage today is that even in the darkest moments of our lives, do not fear.

So let’s read Genesis 15 together.

1. God is Our Shield

So the first reason that we are not to fear in the difficult and dark times in our lives, is because God is our shield.

What does it mean that God is our shield? Let’s turn to the story of Abraham again to find out.

Remember that God promised Abraham 3 key promises: many children to become a great nation, lots of land, and blessing.

But Abraham had lots of reasons to fear. He had no children, and he and his wife Sarah were too old to have a child. If we read verse 2, we see that because they could not have children, all their inheritance was going to go to a man named Eliezer of Damascus, someone who was not part of their family, a complete stranger. They had no child to continue their family name. Despite God’s promise of many children and a nation, Abraham’s family was actually at the brink of extinction. So Abraham had every reason to fear.

But in this moment of discouragement and hopelessness, this is what God says in verse 1 - read Genesis 15:1 “1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.””

God commands Abraham: ‘Fear not’.

‘Do not fear’, is the command by God.

And what’s the reason Abraham should not fear?

‘I am your shield’. God reminds Abraham of who He is. He is Abraham’s shield - he is someone who protects Abraham.

‘Your reward shall be very great’. God reminds Abraham that He is a God that provides everything that Abraham needs.

God is saying, you do not have to fear because you can look at me. Essentially, what God is commanding Abraham to do is to get a brand new set of eyes. Abraham needs to completely change what he is looking at. God is saying, “Don’t look at the situation that is scary. Look at me”.

Slide - Have you been bungee jumping? When you look at the height it is super scary! Your heart races, your legs shake, and the last thing you want to do is jump. But the reason you can jump, and reason you don’t actually have to be afraid is because you know you have the bungee cord to catch you.

It’s the same thing with Abraham and with us. It is so much easier for us to look to the visible, the situation in front of us, just like the scary height in bungee jumping. But God says don’t look at that, because that will only create doubt and fear; instead, just like how we can look at the bungee cord and be reassured instead of looking at the scary height, God says don’t look at the situation but look at me.

As believers, we are to look to the things invisible and the things unseen, which is God, who although He is invisible, is much greater than the hopeless situation in front of us. It is only when we fix our eyes on our great God that we can ‘fear not’, despite the scary situations before us in our lives.

And in his mercy and kindness, God doesn’t leave us completely blind. Although we are to look to the invisible God, God does give us visible reasons to believe in Him. And that is, we are to look at (1) what God will do in the future ie, his promises, and (2) what God has done in the past.

Read Genesis 15:5 “5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.””

Slide In this verse God promises Abraham something extraordinary. There was no light pollution back in the days of Abraham. If you went out into the night sky, you probably would have seen the milky way. Millions of stars in the sky. God says to Abraham that he will have as many children as the innumerable numer of stars in the sky, completely the opposite to his current situation of having no children. And God has promised us so many wonderful things as well: that He will be with us, that He will actually live in us, that he will hear our prayers, that He strengthens and assures us, and most importantly that He has saved us and secured eternal life for us. So we don’t fear, because we have an even greater hope in a God who has promised great things for us.

And then we can see what God has done in the past. Genesis 15:7 “7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.””

God reminds Abraham, ‘I am the God that brought you out of Ur’. And despite the numerous challenges Abraham faced on that journey, God sustained and protected him through all of it. Despite Abraham getting the worse off land compared to Lot, Abraham survived and in fact received even greater promises. We saw last week, Abraham fought against the kings and rescued his nephew Lot, and it was God who allowed Abraham to be safe and find victory in that battle. God is saying, ‘Look at what I have done in the past for you’ to remind Abraham of who He is. And it is the same with us: everytime I doubt God, or have a scary situation in life, I think of the great things God has done for me in my life, and I find so much hope and encouragement, because I know God can do the same again in the future. Even if you don’t have that experience, look at the Bible, and look at what God has done for His people in history. So we do not fear, because all the evidence is there to prove to us that God is trustworthy, and fully capable of being our shield in the battles of our lives.

2. God Makes a Covenant With Us

So the first reason we do not fear is because of who God is (our shield), shown by what he has done, and what he will do.

The other reason we do not fear is because God is a God who makes a covenant with us.

Remember, a covenant is how God relates to us. Just like how husband and wife make promises to each other, God makes promises to us in our relationship with Him. And to show just how committed He is to his promises, God performs a special ceremony with Abraham in the passage today called the ‘covenant of pieces’. Read Genesis 15:17–18 “17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,”

Slide In this covenant, God commanded Abraham to make a number of animal sacrifices, cut them in half, and place them in two rows. In the ancient times of Abraham, when two people made an agreement with each other, they did it by performing this ceremony. They would sacrifice some animals, place them in two rows, and they would each walk in a straight line in between the pieces. It was essentially a self-cursing ritual, where the two people were saying that if they broke their promise, they would end up cut in half and dead just like the animals they were walking through.

But if we read in the passage today, God appears as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, and walks through the two rows. And notice how Abraham doesn’t walk through the pieces. Only God walks through the pieces. God is saying, He himself and He alone will make sure all the promises of our relationship with Him will come true. Even if we don’t keep our end of the deal, even if we keep disobeying God or no matter how sinful we are, God will still keep his promises to us.

And we see this played out in the Bible. Abraham’s descendents, they were rebellious and disobedient. Constantly worshipping other Gods, constantly disobeying God. And they did receive discipline and justice for their disobedience at times. But ultimately, God never abandoned them no matter how dire the situation looked for Israel, because through His Son Jesus Christ, God made sure that He fulfilled His promise towards His people, by saving them through the cross.

Conclusion

Perhaps the most important verse in this passage is this - read Genesis 15:6 “6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

We have to remember, all these things that God promised - none of them appeared before Abraham immediately. There was a long delay before these promises of children, land, blessing came true, and some of these promises didn’t actually even get fulfilled during Abraham’s life. But even if there was this delay, Abraham believed in God despite the circumstances he could see. Abraham believed in God as his shield; he trusted in God because he believed God was completely commited to his promises. Abraham didn’t look at the scary situation in front of him; he looked to the invisible God, who is more powerful than any scary situation. And because Abraham trusted in God, he was saved.

It is the same with us. We are to trust in and look to the invisible God, not the scary situations of our lives. And we look to Him because he is our great shield, and he is completely faithful to his promises. There is no other greater person that we can place our trust in, even ourselves. And it is when we realise how trustworthy and great he is He is, and realise how much we need him and actually believe in Him, that is when we are saved.

Question

What are some great things God has done for you in your life? Let’s remember these things when we face difficulties, so we never lose hope, and we can rejoice in our sufferings.

Do you think that God being good to you and fulfilling his promises to you depends on how good you are? Will doing bad things and disobeying God cause God to change his mind?