Genesis 15:6
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Welcome
Welcome
Open up Bibles, First book by Moses
1 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.” 2 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?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 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.” 5 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.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
1. Pray
1. Pray
2. Intro
2. Intro
Over the last few months, I’ve grown in my love for the Bible
I want to share some things I’ve noticed that have helped me grow in my love for it, in the hopes that you will grow your love for the Bible and your joy in God. Seeing the Bible’s connectedness helps me love it more. Do that by showing you that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in Genesis
3. plan
3. plan
Focus on v6, Our Verse is one used all throughout the Bible, and is used and referenced many times in the NT.
6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
break it down word by word
Make connections to the gospel.
“he”
“he”
Book of Genesis, Moses
Creation sin of man, spiraling out of control
Geneologies
Introduced to Abram, says he was born, took a wife. Not a whole lot
Then all of a sudden, God comes to him and make this incredible, huge promise:
1 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.”
Wow! Abram, Must be a very pious man! Must be someone who was great, or done something great to merit that. Actually no, just the opposite...Joshua writes
And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.
Strange initiation on God’s part toward one who serves other gods. And to really cement in this idea that Abram did nothing to earn this, a few verses later, Abram continues to mess up
Chapter 13 makes a promise to Abram again despite veering off course
14 The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, 15 for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. 17 Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
Some other events happen, rescues his nephew Lot, then ch. 15...
1 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.” 2 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?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 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.” 5 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.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Here Abram kinda snaps back. “I don’t even have kids”
Summary
Age -85
Pagan - sinner (already seen what God does to these people)
yet given PROMISE
God intervenes (remember that)
“believed”
“believed”
What does it mean/not mean
American Christianity/idea of belief
Functional atheism
There’s a difference between Believing in/Believing God
To Believe - Trust leading to action… Faith
where did this belief come from - abraham or God?
God build abram’s trust - as a parent builds trust?
(remember that too)
“the LORD”
“the LORD”
Name of God/Yahweh
One God
“as righteousness”
“as righteousness”
What does it mean — like so many Biblical truths, we must identify this concept by what it is not. No one knows a righteous person.
Moral perfection; Adam and eve before fall; not stained by sin
One of if not THE central question of the bible is HOW can a sinful, unrighteous person be righteous?
Here’s the problem:
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
15 He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous
are both alike an abomination to the Lord.
How can God let me pass?
We’ve been going through Deuteronomy
Law
ten commandments (moral)
Ceremonial law
civic law
All of this repeated and underlined, Shema - love the lord your God with all your heart… It’s a heart issue.
I think we all know people, and maybe you are one of them, who try to follow all the moral laws of the Bible, but do not do them out of love for God.
You can accidentally run into following God’s law. That doesn’t make you righteous - you must also have the right motive. It’s a heart issue.
one of the main points of the bible is that this is all men. None of us have right motives or the ability to be righteous
This applies to every one of us. As we look at Deut., Leviticus, we read, and go, “uh oh.”
Jacob, David, all the Israelites.
People filled with sin, continuously rebellious, stubborn, stiff necked
So what does it mean to “count for righteousness?”
“and he counted it to him”
“and he counted it to him”
What does it mean?
NOT - count like Muslims count
The Word means “to think of”, “to regard”, “to reckon”, “to count as something”, “to credit.” Not “become”
he counted it to him as righteousness - so He, GOD, regarded, thought of, credited ABRAM with righteousness. Something happened that prompted God to think of Abram as righteous even though, we know he is not. What was it?
belief. Abram BELIEVED GOD. God counted that as righteousness.
Word we used for that is justification. "Abram had faith and was justified.”
Many people would say “What’s the big deal, I would count myself as righteousness.”
Of course you would - but God is not like you
Holiness _Sun/burn up example
Yet in this verse, Abram’s simple belief causes God to count him as being righteous,
Where did the belief come from?
God intervening into a pagan sinner’s life, making astounding promises
This belief that caused God to count him as righteous? Something does not compute!
Abraham to Christ
Abraham to Christ
So Abram’s name changed, still disobedient, but he is also changed. Growing in trust; responds in faith to what God says.
not a straight line, messy. Still, beginning of this Promise:
In you shall all the nations be blessed - by YOUR offspring.
This became a point of pride for the Israelites, the Jews. God has not chosen other nations! (TRUE!), he is going to bless the world through
our blood line (TRUE!). We’re the only one who this applies to (EHH!)
Abraham has Isaac—> Jacob—> 12 sons.
Group together, this whole family of a promise
Become the hebrews, Jews being kept and preserved to accomplish God’s promise that your offspring will outnumber the sands on the sea and the stars in heaven.
This group becomes enslaved, moses leads them out of Egypt.
Freed, and God gives them laws, commandments to follow
Heard it audibly
Yet, very quickly thereafter, they grossly rebel, God pours swift justice on them and says you are going wander. Your children will enter this land I promised to Abraham, you are not.
In this Deut. Study, theres this section of scripture, where after wandering for 40 years, God says
7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
I love you because I love you, I am faithful you are not.
Repetition of that faithfulness he showed Abram. Great and wonderful promises to undeserving people.
Several times God through Moses goes point by point on how you must obey me, and throughout the rest of the law, and the OT, the experience of the Israelites, God’s message is repeatedly
DO these laws out of love for the lord your God with all your heart....
AND
I’m going to send a redeemer
He is going to be Mighty God, God with us
And God would speak, they would write it down, and meditate on it, waiting for a thousand years obeying, believing that this promise was only for this Bloodline of Abraham.
They’d say “it says to your offspring, so it’s just for us Jews.”
By the time Jesus is born, many of the Jewish leaders are obeying this law to a T. but ignoring what God kept saying over and over.
Do it out of Love for the Lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and strength, and
I’m going to send a redeemer.
They obeyed, but not with love. And when this redeemer stood in front of them, they could not recognized him. It was just doing rather than believing God’s promises. See the difference? They weren’t “believing God,” though they obeyed.
Christ
Christ
We know what happened. These Jewish leaders put Their Redeemer, the Christ the one they’d been waiting for to death on a cross - according to God’s purpose and plan.
Flip over to Romans 3:21-26 I want to pull out 2 main observations here:
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
21-22: Righteousness of GOD (not of me) is shown apart from the law.
So there is this way for righteousness of God to be shown NOT by following the law. What is it? Faith in Jesus Christ. This righteousness is FOR all who believe!
The righteousness of God is given to me, by faith in Jesus Christ. By Believing Him, trusting him.
“the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.” The Old testament has been pointing to this all along. Here’s proof:
Born of a virgin (Is. 7).
Born in Bethlehem (Is. 9)
Descendant of David (2 Sam 7)
Son of God (Ps 2),
Called “Son of Man” (Daniel 7)
He is going to be ‘cut off’ (Dan. 9),
God will discipline him with the rod of men (2 Sam 7)
His hands and feet are going to be pierced (Ps. 22),
He would bear our griefs, carry our sorrows, he would be stricken, smitten by God, pierced for our transgressions, punished for our iniquities, but that we would be healed by his wounds (Is. 53)
He’s going to crush Satan (Gen. 3:15),
Forgive his people of their sins (Isaiah 1)
He is going to rule and reign (Numbers 24, Psalm 110)
His kingdom will have no end (2 Sam 7)
. All of this would happen before the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed (Daniel 9)
[Temple destroyed in AD 70]
and more is found in the OLD testament.
25-26
What does this mean?
Propitiation - Jesus paid for those sins.
Divine forbearance - Jesus sacrifice paid for all the sins of Abraham, Isaac Jacob, David, Paul you, me.
So that God would be just and the justifier. God is not looking the other way, he is justly punishing sin and he is doing it in the person of Jesus Christ.
John Mac. “Every sin ever committed by every person will be punished… it will either by punished everlastingly in the life of the sinner in Hell, or that sin will be borne by Christ.”
“Abraham believed and he counted it to him as righteousness.” It was Christs future sacrifice that made it possible for Abraham.
He didn’t know the name of Jesus. He knew YHWH.
Jesus is YHWH. Jesus is The LORD of the Old testament.
He is the same God!
He is fully, eternally God in himself. The father - fully God in himself, spirit, fully God in himself, yet there are not 3 gods, but ONE God, existing in 3 coequal, coeternal persons.
this 2nd person of the trinity joined himself with human nature, fully God fully man.
lived the perfect life, not affected by the corruption of sin as we are. But perfectly fulfilling God’s law. Moral, ceremonial, civic - all of it.
Then he is put to death on a cross.
It was not the nails, thorns or whips that paid for your sins.
it was that perfect sacrifice of Fully God, Fully man, that endured Holy God’s wrath toward sin.
God pours his wrath on Christ that should go to me
He endures it as God
He dies as man
paying for my sin as my substitute
rises from the dead on the third day.
When I put my trust in Christ, Believe HIM, not just I believe in Jesus, doing my own thing, But trust him, and obey him...
He becomes my Righteousness
Clothes me in HIS righteousness, He clothes you in his righteousness, and he clothed Abraham in a righteousness that, as Martin Luther described was an ‘alien righteousness’ - it was not his. It did not belong to him, nor to me. (COUNTED… I don’t become righteous)
But as a believer. I stand justified before a holy god.
Abram looked forward to Christ, You and I look back.
Answering the Question
Answering the Question
Where Did Abram’s faith come from?
To answer this question, we must look to the New Testament. Turn to Eph. 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
By Grace, through faith. Not on my own, but a GIFT
There wasn’t anything that caused God to look on Abram and save you. Nothing in me or nothing in you. We, just like Abram are prone to always serve other idols and gods.... Calvin says “Human heart is an endless factory of idols.” We are exactly like Abram, and the Israelites. We are rebels.
But he gives us faith, as a gift. A gift for the ungodly. A gift for the unrighteous. He gives it freely to the worst of sinners, so that God’s work may be glorified. So HE gets the credit!
Story of NG -
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
Grace -Mercy that is motivated by love. (I could put names in a hat… not love)
We’re not saved by the good things we do. Not saved because we’re stronger or better or prettier. We are rebels against a holy God. Who has fully paid for all my sins (not just past, but present and future, and the ability to stop sinning) and has bought me body and soul in life and in death by my faithful savior Jesus Christ.
This is the Gospel. This is the Good news. This is the plan of salvation for all time, planned before the foundation of the world! Listen to how Paul describes our verse...
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
Brothers and sisters, this promise God made to Abram all those years ago? It was about Christ. The promise that the whole world would be blessed? About Christ. Abraham’s offspring? Christ. All those rules in Deuteronomy? They pointed to Christ.
And Abram did nothing to earn it.
For all those who have done as Abram, believed God… are counted as righteous. Clothes in a righteousness that is not their own. If that is you, you and I are part of this promise made to Abraham long ago.
but remember. You didn’t start the process. It was God, by his mercy.
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
