The Importance of an Heir
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· 408 viewsWithout follosing God's plan, the heirs necesssary for Jesus to be born may not have happened
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The Importance of an Heir
The Importance of an Heir
Grace to you, Shalom from God our Father--From Jesus our Messiah--From the Holy Spirit who gives us faith.
Except for when I am quoting scripture, I will refer to Abraham and Sarah, and not refer to them as they are spoken of in today’s lesson. God changes their names later.
Is having an heir who will inherit your name, belongings, wealth and property important? We still live in a society where it is dominant for a woman to take the man’s name when marrying and for kids to be given their father’s last name when they are born.
I have 3 brothers and no sisters. I thought there would be heirs of our family name for generations to come. I was wrong. My oldest brother had two children a boy and a girl. My oldest brother’s son had only 1 child, a girl. I had only 1 child, Annika, another girl. My other two brothers never had any children.
In the direct descendants of my father, the Nyman name will end with the death of my nephew. I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing. It just shows you how quickly things can change. But there will still be heirs to inherit whatever may be left when the Nyman line is gone.
The importance of having an heir was even greater back in Abraham and Sarah’s day.
In Genesis 12, Abraham was called by God to leave and go to the land God would show him. With that call came several promises which God made to Abraham.
Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
One of the things God promised here in the second verse of the 12th chapter, is to make Abraham into a great nation. That is that God will give him lots of descendants. Abraham was 75 years old, and his wife Sarah was 65 years old when God made this promise to them.
So, Abraham stepped out in faith and left his country and followed God to what we call today, the promised land of Israel. Even though God showed Abraham the land that would belong to his heirs, or his descendants, Abraham still didn’t have any children.
Now when we come to the 15th chapter of Genesis, our appointed lesson for today, about 10 years have passed, and still Abraham and Sarah have no children. Abraham is now 85, and Sarah is 75. So, Abraham questions God about this. Look at:[vs 2-3]
But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
Listen to what God tells Abraham in the next verse.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.”
This clue from God, that Abraham will be the biological father of an heir, is important to how the story unfolds.
Now Sarah is 75 and Abraham is 85 years old, they aren’t getting any younger and the most would say: “Their biological clocks have stopped ticking a long time ago!”
Surely Abraham shared with Sarah what God told him about the heir coming from his own body. So in the 16th chapter of Genesis, Sarah tells Abraham that because she is barren, that Abraham might as well father a child through a surrogate. That surrogate was Hagar, Sarah’s hand-maid.
So, Abraham fathers a child with Hagar, His name was Ishmael. This is the first surrogate birth in the Bible. Things do not go well. There is envy, jealousy, and rivalry between Sarah and Hagar. We learn in the 16th verse of chapter 16 that:
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
There is a big lesson right here: When we take God’s guidance into our own hands, it usually does not turn out very well. Abraham thought he was doing what God wanted. After all, Abraham was the biological father of Ishmael.
The last verse of chapter 16 ,which I just showed you on a slide, tells us that Abraham was 86 at Ishmael’s birth. Yet, in the very next verse:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.
we find out that Abraham is now 99, which makes Sarah 89 years old. This means that as far as Scripture goes, Abraham does not hear from God for the next 13 years.
At this time God tells Abraham that he and Sarah will both be the biological parents of a baby. Abraham laughed so hard he fell down. It even sounds like tabloid headlines today :)
The thought of Abraham and Sarah having a baby at this advanced age is so unbelievable that Abraham suggests to God that Ishmael would be God's chosen one.
Look at this dialogue between Abraham and God in verses 18-19 of chapter 17:
And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!”
Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.
Nearly a year later, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90, she gave birth to Isaac. Isaac is the son of the Promise. Isaac is the heir God had promised Abraham 25 years earlier.
God delights in showing Himself faithful in situations which look totally hopeless to you and to me. Was it impossible for a 90 year old woman to have a child? Absolutely! Yet, God enabled the impossible to happen, to strengthen the faith of both Abraham and Sarah.
God promised not just an heir, but lots and lots of descendants. Those descendants could never happen if there wasn’t at least one heir to get the line started.
Abraham learned through this long process of following God, that:
God is trustworthy.
God is faithful.
God’s timing has little or nothing to do with our timing.
But God knew that Abraham wasn’t done learning yet. That is a wonderful lesson we all need to learn. God isn’t finished with you yet! God isn’t finished with me yet. We still need to learn, grow and walk in faith, even when it looks impossible.
PBPGINFWMY
What does that mess of letters mean?
Please Be Patient, God Is Not Finished With Me Yet!
The impossible thing Abraham faced comes in the 22nd chapter of Genesis. Genesis, when God tells Abraham:
Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Please note: God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s only Son. Once more affirming that Isaac, not Ishmael, is the heir of promise. But now God is asking Abraham to take his one and only heir, and put him to death as a sacrifice. This would not only end’s Isaac’s life, but would put an end to the promise of an heir and descendants as well.
But Abraham stepped out in faith. The very next morning after God asked Abraham to go on this impossible mission, Abraham takes Isaac on a three day journey to arrive at the place God showed Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
Listen to the perspective we get about this event from the New Testament book of Hebrews.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,”
concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
This tells us that Abraham believed in the Resurrection of the Dead, even before it had ever happened. That is walking by faith!!!
This also shows that very early in the Bible, the doctrine of the resurrection is evident.
We know that God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his only son, and that many descendants came after Isaac. In fact, Abraham was still alive when his twin grandsons, Esau & Jacob were born.
Of course you know that Jacob was the father of 12 sons, who are today known as the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel.
God made a promise to Jacob’s son Judah, years later that through Judah’s descendants the ruling Messiah would come.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.
This verse tells us exactly how many generations there were from the promise given to Abraham, to its fulfillment with the birth of Jesus, 42 generations in all!
Without Abraham & Sarah giving birth to Issac, the heir of promise, we would never have known about:
* Jacob & the 12 tribes
* Moses & the Israelites
* Gideon, Conquering the Midianites
*Elijah, Victorious over the Prophets of Baal
Without Abraham giving birth to Issac, the heir of promise, we would never have known about:
* David & His Mighty Men
* Isaiah & the Major Prophets
* Hosea & the Minor Prophets
* Jesus & the Disciples
* The Grace of the Cross & the Triumph of the Resurrection
Isaac was a type, or model for the TRUE SON OF PROMISE: JESUS!!!
Jesus is the TRUE HEIR!
Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father!
Since the 1st Adam plunged humanity into sin, Jesus, the 2nd Adam, came to rescue us. Jesus came to free us from our bondage.
One difficulty that Americans have is knowing what bondage is. We pride ourselves in independence and freedom! Yet the way many Americans flaunt their freedom shows that they are in bondage to sin. This bondage to sin is that which they cannot free themselves.
A great analogy of bondage is ADDICTION. Perhaps you have known someone who is/was addicted to drugs or alcohol. You would think with all the problems it has caused, all the pain it has brought into their life and the lives of others, that they would just leave it alone.
But they are in bondage. They cannot leave it alone, even when they want to. They are truly powerless. No matter how hard they try, if they rely on their own strength and power to overcome it, they will fail.
Only Jesus has the power they need to overcome their addiction and set them free from their bondage.
It is no different for you and I. No matter how hard we try, no matter how good we promise to be, we cannot overcome sin in our lives.
Here’s a graphic analogy I’ve used before. If you think you can control the outcome, try it the next time you have diarrhea!! Yes you have some control, but actually very little.
I know I sound like a broken record, but we all need to get it in our hearts that: If we actually had the power and strength to overcome sin in our lives, Jesus would be absolutely unnecessary. It would be up to you and me to overcome sin. But God knows that we cannot overcome sin. So, at the right time God sent the Son of Promise, the Heir of Eternity. God sent His only Son, Jesus, whom He loves to free us from the bondage of sin.
There was only one way for that to happen. Just like God substituted a Ram to be sacrificed instead of Isaac, so God substituted Jesus, the Lamb of God, to be substituted for your sin and mine.
[Insert picture of the cross]
Jesus, the perfect, sinless God-Man, went to the cross in your place, and in my place to take our sins upon himself. Jesus gave his very life on the cross to overcome the sin which you an I could never overcome.
When we see the truth of this, it should drive us to our knees in humility and beg for God’s forgiveness. It should make us so love Jesus, that we would desire to draw close to Him, Serve Him and Love Him all the days of our lives.
Then, we come to be children of God by faith. Because we are children of God, listen rto how Paul describes our position in Jesus to the Romans [vs. 12-17 of ch. 8].
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Now I want you to think about this for a moment. Paul here, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says that: WE ARE HEIRS TOGETHER WITH JESUS!!!
What does Jesus inherit? The entire Kingdom of God. Simply by humble repentance and surrendering the control of your life to Jesus, are you made a joint-heir with Jesus. Then, we too can inherit the Kingdom of God, together with Jesus.
What can prevent you being a joint heir with Jesus? Your sinful heart fooling you to never believe in Jesus, or surrender you life to Jesus.
The importance of an heir could never be more clear. Jesus, the true Heir of the promise, through the cross and resurrection, makes it possible for you, me, and everyone else to inherit the Kingdom of God equally with Jesus.
The promise was begun with Isaac...
The promise was made possible by Jesus...
The Promise is fulfilled when you, by faith, repent and surrender your life to Jesus.
Amen! [SLIDES: Now may the shalom of God…]