KTC-Abraham

Introduction

When we left off last week, Adam and Eve had been given the promise of redemption through the seed of the woman. There would be constant hatred and fighting between the Serpent’s seed and the Woman’s seed, yet God promised that the seed of the woman would one day defeat the seed of the serpent, crushing his head.

From this point forward through the rest of the story in the Bible, God’s people would be looking for this “seed,” this “promised one,” this “Messiah,” who would save them from their sins and adversary.

So, God had made a promise to redeem humanity through the seed of the woman, yet, how can we know that God would fulfill his promise? For after Adam and Eve, we continually see man’s failed attempts at being God’s representatives and being able to fully trust and obey him. Cain killed his brother, the whole human race became extremely wicked, and even Noah and his family followed the seed of the serpent even after God started anew after the flood.

God made a promise, but mankind continued to not fulfill his side of the covenant by being God’s representative but instead chose to represent his own image. So what guarantee do we have that God would fulfill His promise?

In Genesis 12 we learn of the story of Abraham, and it is through Abraham and his family that God re-establishes and confirms his covenant that He will do what he promised in the garden with Adam and Eve. To make things clear, God even goes so far to sign his promise to mankind in blood and He chooses to accomplish his promise through one of the most unlikeliest people in Abraham.

Here is the main point I want you to grasp tonight from the story of Abraham: We can trust in God’s promise to save us because the promise is based on His faithfulness, not ours. But, as a result, we must leave everything behind and trust in His faithfulness and not our own to receive his promise of salvation and forgiveness.

Let’s read Genesis 12:1-3 and first see the covenant promise God made to Abraham. Then, we will look at Genesis 15 and 17 see how God made and affirmed this covenant promise with Abraham.

The Covenant Promise (Genesis 12:1-3)

The first truth we see in this text is that God, in His grace, initiates the covenant.

From verse 1, we can see that it was God who chose to initiate and establish this promise to Abram. But who was Abram and why did God choose him? Had Abram done anything to deserve God’s blessing?

The truth was that Abram was the least likely person for God to choose. Joshua 24:2 says that Abram and his family were pagans and that they worshipped other gods besides the Lord.

So we see from the very beginning of Abram’s story that God’s promise was all dependent upon His grace. The promise was not based upon who Abram was or what he had done.

This is the definition of grace: receiving something that we do not deserve and this is the way that God has treated us in Christ.

The second truth we see in this text is that God called Abram to leave everything and follow Him.

Before giving his promise to Abram, God commands Abram to leave his land, his relatives, and his father’s house and go to a land that God would show him. Abram’s livelihood was completely dependent upon his Father’s household

Theologian John Walton says of this act of Abram: “Essentially, When Abram gave up his place in his father’s household, he forfeited his security. He was giving up his life and everything he knew. He was putting his survival, his identity, his future and his security in the hands of the Lord.”

God did not even tell Abram where he was taking him…Hebrews 11:8-10 says that by faith Abram obeyed God and set out for the land that he was to receive as an inheritance and he went out even though he did not know where he was going.

He did not need to see the map because he had already seen the goodness, holiness, and faithfulness of the cartographer.

Today, it would be like God asking you to leave your family, empty your bank account, give all your clothes away, and go to a country that you did not even know the location of. God is saying, leave everything you have and follow me. Just trust me and obey me.

These words sound familiar don’t they? This was the same command God gave Adam and Eve in the garden and it is the same command that Jesus gives us today. Leave everything behind and follow me. Because I am your good and loving creator, trust and obey me…have we done this? Are we doing this right now in our lives?

Finally the last truth we see in this text are God’s Two Promises

After giving Abram the call to trust and obey God, the Lord laid out the promises of the covenant. God’s promises can be summarized into two promises: The promise of a great nation and the promise of a great blessing.

First, God said that he would make Abram into a great nation. So what things must one have to make a nation? The two most essential aspects that make up a nation are land and people. Without a land, how can a nation exist and without a people to fill that land, who would make up a nation?

Yet, again, here is the crazy thing about Abram’s situation…Abram owned no land, his Father’s family were nomads. So how in the world would Abram, a nomad, who owned no land, make a great nation?

Abram also was lacking the other piece of the puzzle in making a great nation…he had no children. In fact, Genesis 11:30 tells us that Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren and was unable to conceive children. Abram was 75 and Sarai was 65 when God gave Abram this promise…not the most conducive age for child bearing…yet despite this, God said he would make Abram, a pagan, landless, childless nomad into a great nation.

God’s second promise is that he would bless Abram and make his name great so that he and his family would be a blessing to all the nations on the earth.

When we think of the word “bless,” we can often think of material blessings or possessions, which Abram had. But if we go back to the garden with Adam and Eve, we can see that the blessing God had given them was that they would be in the presence of God and have the blessing of enjoying a relationship with Him.

Yet, just as Abram had no land and no children, Abram also, as we learned earlier, was an idolator and pagan…and was not the ideal candidate to mediate God’s blessing to all the nations on the earth. Even so, God said that through him and his offspring, all the nations in all the earth would be blessed and experience the blessing of God’s presence.

Piling up Abram’s credentials…a childless, homeless, pagan, old man…he was probably the most unlikely person to fulfill all of these promises. He actually would fit the description, not of the woman’s offspring, but the Serpents. However, as 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 tells us, in God’s story of redemption, he often uses the most unlikely people to accomplish his purposes.

Read 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

It is important for us to see that the task of having children to be a great nation and being in a relationship with God to mediate God’s blessing of his presence to the nations was impossible for Abram to do in his own strength. Only God could allow Sarai to conceive a child and only God could change Abram’s heart and bless him with his presence. We see this emphasized in verses 2-3 with the pronoun “I.” God continually says that He will be the one to do all of these things…not Abram. God chose to use Abram and his family to exhibit how strong and awesome and glorious He is!

Think about it…God does the same thing in our salvation, He is the one who has given the sacrifice, He is the one who changes our hearts, He is the one who gives us Christ’s righteousness, He is the one who makes a new creation, He is the one who gives us His holy Spirit…He simply asks us to trust, obey, and follow Him just as He did with Abram.

Abram started off pretty good and after he received this call and promised blessing, verses 4-9 say that he obeyed God and did what the Lord had told him.

Yet, as time went on after the promise in Genesis 12, Abram failed to perfectly trust in the Lord and in his promise.

Soon after the promise he feared the Egyptians instead of God and lied in saying that Sarai was his sister to try and save his own skin.

Both Abram’s and Sari’s patience ran thin and they tried to take things into their own hands in producing a son as Abram slept with his servant Hagar to produce the seed where the offspring would come.

But God in His grace and patience came to Abram again when he was 99 years old and reaffirmed the promise would not come through Ishmael, the son born from Hagar, but would come from Sarai. To reiterate his promise, he changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which meant “Father of a multitude.” He also changed Sari’s name to Sarah, which meant “princess,” as she would be the mother of kings of nations.

Look at Genesis 17:7-8...God also promised that He would bless Abraham by being their God and giving them the land he had promised to them. Remember that he did this after their disobedience…which was another example of his amazing grace.

Finally after twenty-five years of waiting, God delivered on his promise and Abraham and Sarah bore a son named Isaac. It was through Isaac that the blessing of God would come to the nations. Isaac had a son named Jacob, who’s name was later changed to Israel. It is through Israel’s twelve sons that the Israelites as a nation was born. Despite Abraham’s disobedience, despite opposition, God’s word was fulfilled and his promises to Abraham were secure.

But what made this promise secure? For, if Abraham was not perfectly obedient to trust in God’s promise just as Adam and Eve and Noah had done, what would prevent the covenant from being broken and the blessing lost? How could God still bring about these promises if Abraham did not fulfill his side of the covenant?

In Genesis 15, we discover the answer through a unique interaction between God and Abraham. Lets read Genesis 15:8-12

What is going on here? About a year before Issac is born, God came to Abraham in a vision and told him to get a bunch of animals and split them open. In Abraham’s day when people made a covenant with each other, they would split animals up and the two parties would walk through the dead animals.

Through walking through the dead animals, each party was saying that if they did not keep the covenant, then they would be like these dead animals…they would face the curse of death.

Yet, look at verse 17, it says, “When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.”

So, who walked through the dead animals? Abraham? No, the smoking fire pot and flaming torch, represented the Lord, was the one to walk through the dead animals. He alone was the one who made the covenant.

What this means is that God was going to keep both sides of the covenant. He was committing to keep the promises that he had made to Abraham, but he was also committing to suffer the consequences and face the curse of death if Abraham was not loyal to the covenant to trust the Lord!

Don’t miss this…The covenant promise that through Abraham all the nations would be blessed…that the seed of the woman would crush the seed of the Serpent’s head was not based on Abraham’s faithfulness but on God’s faithfulness to keep his promises…In some way, God would provide someone to be the perfect and obedient son… and if Abraham or his descendents could not keep the covenant, God would pay the price, he would take the curse.

Ray Vander Laan expresses the significance of this covenant by saying,

“I love you so much, Abraham, God was saying, “and I promise that this covenant will come true for you and your children. I will never break my covenant with you. I’m willing to put my own life on the line to make you understand.”

“If this covenant is broken, Abraham, for whatever reason-for my unfaithfulness or yours-I will pay the price,” said God. “if you or your descendents, for whom you are making this covenant, fail to keep it. I will pay the price in blood.”

And at that moment, Almighty God pronounced the death sentence on his Son Jesus.

So what does all of this covenant with Abraham stuff have to do with you and me? The Abrahamic covenant is the covenant that was permanent and eternal, and the covenant that Jesus fulfilled when he made the new covenant through shedding his blood on the cross for our sins.

Galatians 3:13 tells us that it was Jesus who took the curse for Abraham and his offspring not being able to keep the covenant…for being God in the flesh, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”

Jesus, not only took the curses for our disobedience, but he fulfilled our side of the covenant through becoming an obedient son. Because Jesus was fully man, he became our representative and fully trusted in the Father, left everything, and followed Him. Jesus represented God’s image perfectly and was his perfect servant, he was the second Adam, the fulfillment of Adam.

Adam and Eve could not do it, Noah could not do it, Abraham could not do it, David could not do it, and we could not do it…only Jesus perfectly obeyed God and that is why it is only through faith in Jesus that we can be saved.

So if God is faithful to keep his promises, if he was willing to put his life on the line for you, to guarantee your salvation is secure, how are you going to respond? How does God’s faithfulness change the way you live your life, how you view God, if you trust in him or not, how you handle disappointments, how you cope with stress and anxiety, how you treat others?

Our salvation is not based on our faithfulness or anything that we can do, but solely based on God’s faithfulness and grace towards us. Just as he did with Abraham, all he asks of us is to leave our life of sin behind and trust and follow him.

So who’s faithfulness are you trusting in to keep the covenant…God’s or your own? How are you going to respond to God’s word tonight?

Let’s Pray.