God's Big Picture: Genesis 14-15

CIT: We should be committed to God by faith because he is always good and always keeps his promises.

Abram is commited to God’s plan by faith. Gen. 14-15:6

God shows that he will accomplish this plan. Gen. 15:7-21

God calls us to have faith in him.

Abram is commited to God’s plan by faith. Gen. 14-15:6

In the Gen. 13 we see that God assures Abram that he will one day control the entire land of Canaan, the promised land. So, with this in mind the story of Gen. 14 happens.

War breaks out in the promised land!

The war that breaks out is between 5 kings from the promised land and 4 kings not from the promised land.

While this is happening Abram is just chilling with his herds in the promised land remaining neutral.

When the war is over the 4 kings from outside the promised land have beaten the kings from inside the promised land and have taken prisoners, one of them being Lot.

One of Lot’s herdsmen escapes and tells Abram that Lot has been taken captive, so Abram gets his men and goes and beats the 4 kings with his own army and rescues Lot.

Abram has a right to the land

When Abram defeats the foreign kings he now has a right to the promised land because he now has the spoils of war.

When Abram sits down with Melchizedek and the king of Sodom he lets the king of Sodom have all his stuff back, even though Abram has a right to keep everything.

The question arrises, why does Abram give back all of the spoils of war? He has a right to the promised land at that moment, why would he not take it? We see why in Gen. 15:1-6

Abram believes in God

After the events of Gen. 14 take place God comes to Abram and tells him to, “Fear not,” But why would Abram be afraid here? He just won a battle and had a right to the promised land, but he gave it up.

God is assuring Abram that he does not need to be afraid that he lost his only chance at the promised land. That he will still keep his promise to Abram.

Abram, responds with a lamentful question in Gen. 15:2 and tries to give reason for his question in Gen. 15:3

but God assures Abram in Gen. 15:4 that he is going to keep his promises to Abram!

Before we continue i want to take a moment to let us learn something from this exchange between God and Abram. God gives Abram a promise, but Abram doesn’t see how that promise is going to happen, and God answers graciously explaining how he intends on keeping his promise.

I think that many times we are afraid to ask God questions because we think God will come down with a lightning bolt smiting us for daring to ask him, “why?” or, “how?” but that’s not what we see in Scripture! In fact, what we see in Scripture is that when people ask these tough questions to God, God responds, and the person’s faith is strengthened!

So do not be afraid to ask God why or how. Why am I depressed when you said I would have joy? Why are my parents fighting or divorced if you said that Christians are supposed to be unified? How am I supposed to share the gospel when I’m stuck at home? How am I supposed to be happy with what is happening when I;m not even happy with myself?

God will give us the answers to these questions through his word, you just need to follow what God says in Isaiah and, “Look to me,”

God even goes a step further in assuring Abram that he will keep his promise of giving him a son that he tells Abram that his descendants will out number the stars!!

So what was Abram’s response to this assurance from God? Belief.

When God assures Abram he believes. The same should be for us, when we ask God these tough questions, and we get assured from Scripture our response should be belief every time.

God shows that he will accomplish this plan. Gen. 15:7-21

God gives Abram a vision

Now with Abram being assured that God will keep his promises, God goes a step further to vividly show Abram how committed he is to keeping his promises to Abram.

In Gen. 15:7-21 we see a scene that may be confusing to us, but that’s because our lens is the 21st century American lens. We need to put on our ANE lens to understand this scene.

It is an ancient covenant making ceremony, but there is a twist. Most often when one of these covenants is made there are two covenant keepers, a primary and a secondary covenant keeper, in this case it should be God (primary) and Abram (secondary).

But in Abram’s vision he doesn’t pass through the animals, just the fire pot and the torch (which both symbolize God)

This shows that Abram has no obligations in this covenant. God is starting the work and he is finishing the work.

We are evidence that God keeps his promises

This Abrahamic covenant is incredibly important because we are evidence that God keeps his promises. Yes, as Christians we are counted as Abram’s descendants by faith, and since we have heard the gospel and responded in faith then we are evidence that God always keeps his promises, even when they seem absolutely impossible.

God calls us to have faith in him.

He calls us to have faith in him when life is easy

Just like it was easy for Abram to give up the spoils of war, due to his faith that God would be the one to give him that land, because life was easy in that moment

Just like for us when life is going our way and everything seems to be easy it is easy for us to say we have faith in God.

He calls us to have faith in him when life is hard

Just like when Abram was facing having to trust in God’s promises even though he was still childless.

Just like when life is harder than it’s ever been, we can know that God’s promises are sure.

God is good and keeps his promises

God is the truest good. When we are confused and lack the faith to believe what he says he assures us that it is true. When his promises in Scripture seem impossible to keep we can trust that we can have joy in the midst of suffering, that we can have hope for a better future, because God always keeps his promises!

Conclusion

Because of these truths from Gen. 14-15 we can have a new and different outlook on life and all that happens in it.

Whenever something good happens we can take a step back and put it in its proper context, that it is God who has promised that he would bless his people, and we can give him praise and glory for his gifts.

Whenever something bad happens we can take a step back and put it into its proper context as well, that Jesus promised us that we would suffer in this life just as he did, but that we can believe what Paul believed, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will soon be revealed to us.”