Promise Made - Promise Kept
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I don’t know how many of you were out at night earlier this week on those first few cold crisp nights - the stars were out in all of their glory and if you spent a little bit of time you could easily identify the constellations - the big and little dipper, Orion, and still there were millions of other stars that filled the night sky as well.
Abram had been promised that his descendants would be like the stars in the night sky or the sand on the shore. Whichever you choose, his descendants were going to be beyond measure. But there was a problem as we remember. Abram and his wife Sarai were getting old. And doubt began to creep in.
Where we left off last week, we had Abram and Sarai living out their lives before God. Abram had been promised that God would make his lineage into a great nation - but he was still childless. The question we talked about was do we believe in God’s promises?
God Called Abram - “I will make you a great nation...”
God Called Abram - “I will make you a great nation...”
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. 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.”
Did Abram believe God’s promise?
Well…Yes and No.
We read in Genesis 15:6
And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
And still, at one point in our story instead of trusting God he listens to his wife Sarai who gives him her Egyptian servant Hagar. Hagar becomes pregnant and has a child, they name him Ishmael. This doesn’t help the marriage. Sarai becomes jealous of Hagar and deals harshly with her.
Still, God remains faithful.
“Behold, my covenant is with you...”
“Behold, my covenant is with you...”
In Chapter 17 of Genesis we read this covenant:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
When Abram was ninety-nine years old - That’s really old. Definitely beyond regular fatherhood years
The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; - I am El Shaddai! El is the word for God - and Shaddai emphasizes God’s Power!
walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
If 1 Corinthians 13 is the Love Chapter, using the word “LOVE” 8 times in 1 chapter, then Genesis chapter 17 is the “Covenant Chapter” because it mentions Covenant 13 times in 1 chapter.
And it is significant to recognize that it is God’s covenant. It’s not Abram’s - it something made with Abram, but God continues to say I will make “MY” covenant with you. Also to note is that it is an everlasting covenant.
There are significant items here that we need to note:
Ishmael is Abram’s child of the flesh, but Isaac is a child of the promise.
God promised Abram that he and his wife Sarai would have a child. The promise is specific to Abram and Sarai.
He establishes his covenant again with Abram and Sarai changing their names to Abraham and Sarah. Abram means “exalted father”; Abraham means “father of multitude”.
In Genesis 18 Yahweh speaks to Abraham and says:
The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.
Sarah finds this just as hard to believe as Abraham had, and she laughs as Abraham had in the previous chapter.
The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
It is unbelievable, considering their age - and often when God works it is done in such a way that it can only be a God intervention. Sarah’s barrenness underscores that the fulfillment of God’s promise of many descendents requires God to directly act, for only the Creator God can bring life out of a barren womb (nothingness). In Genesis, barrenness points to the fact that God alone fulfills his promise of many children - in the Hebrew, the verb used emphasizes God being the CAUSE of his people to be fruitful and multiply.
Sarah would give birth to a son as promised and Abraham would name him Isaac, which means “he laughs”, a nod to the fact that both he and Sarah had laughed at the promise given to them by God.
Isaac’s wife Rebekah would be called barren, as would Jacob’s wife Rachel, thus again pointing to God’s intervention and fulfilling the covenant made with Abraham.
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Kaminski: God’s promises to the patriarchs are foundational for the story of Israel in the Old Testament. God will indeed fulfill his intention to redeem the world through Abraham’s descendants. These same promises will lead us into the New Testament, for they will ultimately be fulfilled through Jesus, who is not only a descendant of Abraham (Matt. 1:1), but also the “seed” to whom the promises are given (Gal. 3:16, 19). With these promises in view, it is said of Jesus: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20).
Kaminski, Carol. CASKET EMPTY: God's Plan of Redemption through History. Old Testament Reader (p. 31). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Kindle Edition.
Romans 4:13-22
Romans 4:13-22
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
This means that we can testify that Abraham’s seed has multiplied like the sands on the seashore and that it includes us as well!
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not only our God, but we too can claim that we are children of the promise by faith given to us not by our own works but as a gift of God.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The redemption story is from the beginning of Genesis and continues to us. Let us live not seeking to earn our way to heaven, but as heirs - not based upon our works, but on the God’s Work through Jesus Christ His only Son!