Gensis 15 Covenant

Abraham was given a promise. He would be the one to whom God would give a great nation. He would have descendants who would number the sand on the sea and the stars in the sky.

lets start back in genesis 12

Genesis 12:1–3 (ESV): Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 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. 3 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.”

This was an incredible promise from God. To not only have a line of descendants but to also be a blessing to other nations as the nation that God has chosen.

The problem is that Abraham is rich in promises but short on kids. In order to see God’s promise fulfilled, Abraham needed a son. He did not have one. In order to see God’s promise fulfilled, Abraham needed land. He had none. In fact he had just left the only land he knew in Ur.

running out of gas. I could not get to where I needed to be no matter how badly I needed to be there.

So Abraham has no name, no child and no land.

But it is from this place, this place of naught, that everything God willed became reality.

It is from this non location in the desert that God not only promised Abraham’s role in God’s will but put all the authority, desire, and capacity of Heaven behind it.

When We see barrenness God sees bounty

Genesis 15:1–11 ESV

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.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 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.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. 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.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

Abraham was promised but could not deliver on his part of the promises.

Abraham was childless, homeless, was the negative version of everything he needed to be what God called Him to be.

Abram is straddling the line between promise and fulfillment.

we live in the valley between promise and fulfillment.

and that valley often feels barren. The good news is promises need to happen when things are lacking. You don’t need a prpmise if you have what you need.

so we have been promised by God in relationship with Him. And even if things feel or look barren. God loves to bring fullness from bArennes

Abraham’s life at this point, is defined by barrenness.

No child

No land. Desert.

Abraham, through his questioning can’t seem to figure out which way is up and God in His Kindness is willing to answer them.

Abraham, with nothing, wants to know something about God’s plan.

Abraham tries to reason about how he will have descendants. He tries to be rational. Here is how the lineage goes, God. Obviously, this is how things will happen. And God tells him that in fact it will be his own offspring. He will have a child.

Relationship with God is not determined by what we lack

We get a sense of God’s work in Romans 4 which gives some background to this story. The Apostle Paul is detailing what Abraham’s belief does and why it was credited to him as righteousness. That it is not about what we have but about who God is.

It is important to note that God’s promise did not come through better strategies or helpful goals. It came through relationship.

Our trust is not found in law or contract, it is found in RELATIONSHIP

then the question becomes how does God do that? Through covenant.

Resolution with God is found in Covenant

Genesis 15:12–19 ESV

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 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, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

God upholds both ends of the covenant

This is a strange image so we need to look at what is happening.

Abraham falls into a deep sleep. And the sacrifices of a heifer, a female goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon we split and laid apart so that they could be walked through.

And while Abram was asleep he saw a smoking firepot and flaming torch pass between these pieces.

The firepot and torch are representations of God’s presence with His people. It is a theophany, where we see the active presence of God in the world.

And these items, representing God, passed between the sacrifices.

This was a ritual to display and create a covenant between two parties.

When two people or groups had to agree on something, they would create a covenant. This was an agreement built on the relationship between the two parties.

They would often step between the sacrifices as an agreement to say, “if I don’t hold up my end of the bargain, may I become like these.” They would uphold the agreement or die.

meaning they put thier life on the line in covenant.

So we see not two parties walk through in symmetrical agreement. They both agree to the terms.

IN this image, only God steps through. He agrees to the terms on both parties, stating that the covenant will be upheld so long as He is able to uphold it.

So He agrees to it

He upholds it

God puts Hos own life on the line in covenant

Covenant is the resolution to our bareness

In our wanting, in our lack, God will hold up His end of the bargain. It does not mean that we have nothing to do. Abram had to leave, he had to move, had to go. But he could not hold up his end of the bargain. God held up both. And Abram’s belief, his trust in God’s ability to hold up the covenant, was what made him right before God.

When the kids were young and they would ride scooters to school. They were free to ride but I was behind them a block coming in and out of streets to make sure they got to the school ok.

So they had to ride to school. They did the work. But I made sure they got to where they needed to be. I was always there as they moved as they worked. Always in sight, even when they couldn’t see me. Because if there was a moment where they would fall, I could step in.

We live lives in our culture where it feels like we have stepped out into unknown worlds. Where everything has been shaken up and we are left to figure out what to do. It is hard to even figure out what to do.

But as we are called out as Christians in our discomfort, we have a God who has covenented with Himself on our behalf. And He stands behind us as we go.

and we see just how much God puts Hos life on the line in covenant.

Barrenness is always bounty when God upholds the covenant

Because no matter what side of the covenant you land on you find God. When God covenants with God and invites you into it, no matter where you stand you find God.

it was covenant that gave Abram what he needed to keep moving

Hebrews 11:8–10 (ESV): By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

God gave all of who He is to uphold the covenant w abram.

in the same way Christ gave all who He is for us.

Christ is the manifestation of the covenant

Christ is what the covenant, the new covenant looks like in life. Christ went to the cross to uphold His end and ours.

So we may feel like we are lacking in this world we live in. That we don’t have the resources or the wisdom or the understanding.

I say, good!

These are the points where we get to see what God is up to.

These are the points where we need to see where God is up to.

When we are lacking, God is unbundling grace and mercy. And we, in being rescued by Him, can move forward with what He is doing

the most important thing is not what is happening in the valley between promise and fulfillment. But rather who is with us in the valley between promise and fulfillment.

Look at Luke 4:17-21

Luke 4:17–21 ESV

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

When we can’t, God already has.

I want to close by talking about one of my favorite ideas in all of fiction, the eucatastrophe

One of the greatest moments where we see this happen, and we can see it happen all throughout the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, is at the end.

What you need to know is that the whole story is a journey of a hobbit named Frodo who has to destroy the ring of Mordor by dropping the ring back into the center of the mountain of Doom. A lot happens but eventually he, his friend Samwise drop the ring in the volcano. And the mountain of Doom erupts. There is lava coming down the sides and our heroes are trapped on a boulder surrounded by lava. No way out. exhausted and weary. It is, as Frodo says, “the end of all things.”

When our heroes were exhausted, when they were empty, when they were doomed, just at the right moment, the eagles came and saved them

**“Frodo and Sam could go no further. Their last strength of mind and body was swiftly ebbing. They had reached a low ashen hill piled at the Mountain’s foot; but from it there was no more escape. It was an island now, not long to endure, amid the torment of Orodruin. All about it the earth gaped, and from deep rifts and pits smoke and fumes leaped up. Behind them the Mountain was convulsed.

Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Meneldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire.”**

— The Return Of The King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien https://a.co/fUfoLn

Tolkien talked about the use of the Eagles in his essay called *On Fairy Stories.*Tolkien grew up in the first half of the 20th century, he served in WW1, he wrote the LOTR through WWII. He understood pain and loss and grief and sin and brokenness. So his writing comes from a place where he wants to show a broken world what grace looks like.

And the eagles are a literary trope that he developed called a Eucatastrophe. It comes from “eu” meaning “good” and “catastrophe” meaning an “unravelling”. It is a good unravelling from the chaos in the world that helps the characters in the story beyond their ability to act. It is an act of grace. The eagles help when Frodo and Sam cannot.

- a Eucatastrophe is an act of grace when the character cannot conjure one on their own.

- God’s activity in our lives is eucatostrophic. God acts when we cannot. God moves and restores and renews steps from our own brokenness.

His covenant is the eucatostrophic work in our world.

We can trust that when we feel barren, unsure of what to do next, God is swooping down to move.

We may live in an unsteady, lacking world. But as we do move we serve a God who is completely steady and can be trusting to fill any lack we carry.