Number the Stars:

Andrew Thompson

Through the Bible Rejoicing • Sermon • Submitted 2 months ago • Presented 2 months ago

Genesis 15

Faith

God makes a covenant with Abram

Grief

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Genesis 15: 1-21

Good Morning Church of God! And what a glorious morning the Lord has given us! As we continue the Lenten season, thinking toward the cross, we look at all the ways God prepared for the arrival of His Son Jesus Christ. No more important a story in that journey takes place than God’s covenant with Abram in Genesis 15. This is a not a little old dusty story about a sheep herder meeting God and getting a Word truth. This right here is a beautiful love story between God and the people He created. The way that God prepares to redeem man from sin has already begun in Genesis and Abram is one in the line of those God will love and lead through toward the day of Christ.

The Picture of God and Abram in Genesis 15

Last week we introduced Abram and his righteous following of the

Lord God’s commands, his faithful witness as he went to a foreign land. Since he’s been there in the land of the Canaanites, Abram has sinned by losing faith and telling the Pharoah of Egypt that Sarai was his sister. God cursed the Egyptians and sent Abram and his family away. We see that even the most upright worshippers of God are tempted by their own fear and their sin and disobey God. This story of Abram’s unfortunate, unprayerful sin decisions took place at the end of Genesis 12. Abram’s nephew Lot moved his herds toward toward the attractive lands and nearer to the Canaanite cities. Lot did not have God’s vision, but only his own in mind. We can almost see him licking his lips like a wolf as he anticipates moving toward good watering lands and more people he could engage with. Lot moved his flocks and herds and family to Sodom, where the people were evil and the party never stopped.

The kings of the land, leaders of their tribes and cities went to war

with each other as we read in Genesis. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were run straight into the coal pits and the enemy king captured Lot and his family and all that he had. This was evil fighting evil. In Genesis 14, we read the story of Lot’s settling in this nice grazing land, only to be captured along with all that he had. Imagine being lot. You settle and build your estate in a rich and fertile land and all that you look at is yours. You’re near enough to town to have a little fun and life is good. Then, a bunch of bandit tribes come across the border and kidnap you. God rose up old uncle Abram and his people and they rescued lot. Abram in this story becomes the first recorded Hebrew, which comes from the word Ibri, meaning leader of the people. Abram and his strong and faithful household routed the evil kings and returned all that Lot had along with his family. Uncle Abram was no tottering old sheep herder. He led an army of 318 strong men who whooped the evil kings and ran them all the way to Syria.

There is peace in the valley. Amen. The end. Except that it’s not the

end of God’s plan. In Genesis 15, God reveals the next chapter of His story for humanity. Our mighty God cast His vision for salvation onto Abram and shows the elderly herdsman what is to become of His people. God tells Abram that his reward will be great going forward and this is where Abram gets scared. He doesn’t test God, doesn’t lose faith in God, doesn’t sin against God, but he has very human fear. He asks God how he will be great and raise up a nation of the Lord’s people when he has to give all of his inheritance to his servant Eliazar. This is when the Lord his God takes Abram aside and tells him that an heir will be his own flesh and blood son. God shows him the span of the stars and tells him that Abram’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars. When Abram questions again, God has him offer a sacrifice. God again reminds Abram that he is the God who brought him up out Ur of the Chaldeans and up out of Egypt. When Abram has prepared the sacrifice, God put Abram to sleep and shows him the truth of the future, the truth of his heirs to be: This is not going to be easy for you and your heirs, Abram. They’re going to suffer as slaves for 400 years under oppressive rulers. The people will not possess this land I promise you until I have led them to drive out their oppressors. The fertile land that you see Abram, with it’s rivers and valleys and good grazing lands will go to four generations beyond your lifetime before your ancestors possess it.

What Does God’s Covenant Mean?

What does all of this writing in Genesis about Abram and Sarai

and Lot mean? God gave an elderly sheep rancher a wonderful dream and told him that his descendants would be numerous as the stars. That’s a beautiful picture. When you’re outside on a clear night and the weather’s good, you see the heavens that God created. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think about what God promised Abram in Genesis 15. God’s people from Abram on down would be numerous as the stars. That’s mind boggling to us, but it’s God’s perfect way of illustrating to to Abram that not only would one heir come from his household, but that he’d be father Abraham, the righteous ancestor of a nation of God’s people.

The Bible: God’s Story as a Whole.

The story of God’s covenant with Abram is a powerful reminder

that these are not just stories we’re reading in the Bible. In church and in our devotions, we don’t just read the Bible as a collection of interesting tales woven together to get us to act right. The Bible is God’s continuing story, from beginning to end, of salvation that culminates in the life of Jesus Christ and leads to the church where Jew and Gentile worship God knowing they are redeemed by Christ’s blood. If you read the Bible as 66 good to know books and put it away as something you’ve finished, you miss the point. The Bible is God’s ongoing story from the time of creation, from the time that sin entered the world through salvation through the life, death and resurrection in Jesus Christ. The covenant that God makes with Abram in Genesis 15 is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That’s why we read this over and over again.

In Exodus 19-24, God renews His covenant with Abram,

bringing Moses and the people to Mt. Sinai and giving Moses the law. In Exodus 19: 3-7 we see the Covenant Promise of God:

English Standard Version Chapter 19

3 while Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

God confirmed the promise to Abram with Moses and the

people of Israel: You will be my people and I will be your God. The people’s only requirement for fulfilling their duty to God’s promise was to obey His law and worship Him alone. The people of Israel proved over and over again that they couldn’t do that. They failed in their promise to be God’s people and chased after every other thing that looked shiny and exciting to them. Christ made a final covenant, a new promise between God and man that stands forever. In Luke 22:20 Jesus proclaims before His disciples: “And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Therefore, Christ wrote a new covenant, a new promise a new treaty between God and man. Christ, the Son of God’s blood and body were shed for the sins of all mankind and that man could only come to salvation through Christ our Lord. Here is why these covenants, these binding agreements between God and his people matter. All through Scripture, we see God love His people so much that he spared them time and time again to worship and adore Him as their one true God. Over and over again, the people of Israel took God for granted and chose to forsake the Covenant promises. God ultimately made a final Covenant through Christ to extend God’s love and the right to be called his earthly children through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. We only have to look to the New Testament to know that God made a new promise and extended the hand of love to all who call His name in repentance, both Jew and gentile.

The Anguish of Abram

God knows Abram’s heart. He knows that Abram is grieved

because he has no sons or daughters. God knows everything about Abram. Just as Abram’s forerunner Adam was lonely and grieved because there was nobody in creation like him, God put Abram to sleep and went about His divine work, making the way clear to Abram’s human mind. God did not chastise Abram, he didn’t tell him to be quiet and follow his commands. God knew that thing that grieved the hearts of Abram and his wife Sarai was that they had no children, nobody to share their love with, nobody to pass their great fortune on to. They had nobody to teach in the ways of God’s will. They had doted on Lot and kept watch over him, but Abram wisely separated the two families so that each could prosper. Now it seems to Abram that he and Sarai will die in this foreign land without a legacy of their own. God has other plans, though. He tells Abram that he will produce a child and that the nation will come from him. Abram doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t scoff. Abram “believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.” God said, he believed. God who is merciful is the only one who can turn the grief of our hearts and the misery that destroys our souls and turn it into His glory. Not only that, but through Abram, who believed in God’s promises with all his heart came the people of Israel and the promise of Jesus Christ our savior.

Abram asks again of God how His will is going to be

fulfilled. In verse 8 of chapter 15, Abram ask how he is going to know that he will possess the promised land God has set aside for His people. I want you to know that Abram isn’t asking God out of a sense of unbelief, disrespect or sarcasm. Abram was a believer in God’s promises and stood righteous among the people in His strong belief. Abram asks, because he desires to serve the Lord. God puts him to sleep and shows him the way in which his descendants will prosper under the Lord’s banner, not because He has to, but because God loves Abram and knows that the herdsman believes in Him with all of His heart. God showed him all that would happen to the people of Israel, how God would protect them from those that tried to pick them apart like vultures. Our mighty God showed Abram the fire, the light of God that would go before the people of Israel as the crossed out of Egypt and made their way to the land of God’s promise for them.

Why Is Abram and God’s Relationship Important to Us?

There is a lot of story packed into those 21 verses in

Genesis 15. God lays out the whole story of his people to this one lowly, faithful servant. Yet Abram believed. He accepted God’s promises. Did he sometime get impatient with how slow things are because God works on His own timetable and not ours? Of course, that is our human nature, inclined to sin and want things our own way all the time. By now, Abram was 85 years-old. Not only is his outer vision growing dim, so is his inner vision of the mind. His wife Sarai is even less sure and we’ll soon see that she tries to God’s work and fails. Here’s the thing, though. We read this story and know that God worked out a plan of salvation for all of mankind, giving His chosen people the right to be the first even though they’d refuse. We also see in chapter 15 of Genesis God’s great love and mercy for the people He has created. Throughout Scripture we see God’s kindness and His blessing to those who love Him and that’s no more so true than here. We also see in this story a great truth about God: The God we serve doesn’t sugarcoat how hard it is to be a true believer. The Lord didn’t mince words, He told Abram that the tribes would endure 400 years of misery as slaves of the Pharaohs and then have to fight their way to taking the land promised to Abram’s descendants. Even after the 400 years, when Moses takes the people to Mt. Sinai, they’re still grumbling and unbelieving, whining about how good they had it as slaves. He was faithful to them, however, and the believers who were steadfast, Abram, Moses, Joshua, again and again staved off their destruction.

Number the Stars

I want you to take some truths home from this

Scripture lesson today. Never would I give you a message that causes you to say “Ah, he just talked about crusty old Abram and Moses.” Here’s the things I want to leave you with:

God is Present in Our Grief. God Sees Your Belief. *The Things Of God Our Hearts Desire Are Known to Him.

#1 God is present in our grief. The Lord our God saw

Abram and Sarai’s distress, He knew their hurt over not having an heir to love and to take on their legacy. A man could buy or sell land in Abram’s culture, but to inherit the land of one’s ancestors was the highest form of respect and privilege. The daughter recieved a dowry from their fathers, but the son received the ancestral lands passed from generation to generation. This was the father’s and the son’s identity. Abram was resigned to give his property to Eliazar, the foreign servant upon death. For Abram, he had no child to carry on his traditions and ways and no child to take hold of his estate. Abram was suffering through a loss that hurt him emotionally and probably physically as he aged.

When our hearts are troubled, God sees us in the midst of

that hurt. He understands that hurt. God who saw man turn his back on Him sees your grief and understands. God who sacrificed his perfectly sinless, righteous son on a dusty hill sees us in our suffering and has known suffering Himself. Who better to understand you. Humans have an affliction called magical thinking. It’s a term psychologists use to describe thinking that is just unreasonable and fanciful. So, if you are suffering, whether it’s a hurt, the loss of someone you love, or knowing that you are going to face grief soon, and you say “Nobody understands me, nobody sees me.” That’s magical thinking, because God sees you. He knows everything about you and He loves you more than humans can imagine. God came to Abram and told him that He saw his childless estate and that not only would he have a child heir, but that Abram’s ancestors would be more numerous than the stars. Unlike Abram, God does know the number of the stars in heaven, because He created them and He doesn’t engage in magical thinking. While I do not ever make pictures of the Bible, I imagine that God’s loving arm is around Abram and He is instilling the man not only trust, but reminding Abram that He is valued and that He is part of God’s plan of salvation.

When you’re hurting, for whatever reason it might be,

there are two choices you have. You can forsake God and start telling yourself that He doesn’t exist and that He doesn’t care, Or…you can do as Abram did. You can believe in God’s promises, talk to God, ask Him your questions and concerns in a way that shows you trust Him with your future. I often counsel people when a loved one dies that they should talk to God, even if they are so grieved that they feel angry with the Lord. I remind them that it was the Lord who created them for relationship and that He wants to hear them speak their pain and seek Him out. The Lord our God is there in the midst of our grief and He’ll be there when we are ready to cry out to Him in our time of need.

God Sees Our Belief!

#2: Here’s the second point I want to make about

Genesis 15: God saw Abram’s steadfast belief in Him and He counted to him as righteousness. What a profoundly beautiful for the author of Scripture to say. God sees those who believe, those who call out to Him in prayer because they trust in the Lord, those who worship God, even in the most confusing of times. God counts that unfailing belief in Him as a sign of our devotion to Him and His will. God looked on Abram favorably because he believed. He looked on David favorably because he believed. He looked on the prophets because they believed. He looked on the apostles favorably because they believed and he looks on you with favor because you believe. Does that mean you get every thing you want and life goes la-dee-da perfect because you believe? No. Abram buried his beloved wife, David lost a child in his sin, despite the fact that he never stopped believing in God. The prophets were persecuted by evil rulers. The apostles were hung upside down on crosses and burned or stoned for their belief in God. Yet none of them stopped believing and God saw them always.

God made these Covenants with the patriarchs

because He wanted one thing: True and unending belief that He is God for eternity and that we are His people. For most of history people have ignored that. We’ve made up our own rules. I’ll give to charity, I’ll go to church, I’ll help old ladies across the street. God sees those who believe in Him, who worship Him and who put Him first always and he counts them as being righteous in His kingdom.

The Things of God that are in Our Hearts are Known to Him!

#3. God knows what’s in our hearts. He knows exactly what we focus on and what’s important to us. For Abram, it was an heir and it was to worship his God faithfully. God knew what was in Abram’s heart and He blessed him and caused him to be fruitful. He took the desire of faithful Abram’s heart and used it to create the nation of Israel. Again, that doesn’t mean that you get everything that you want. That’s Santa Claus and he has a different address and isn’t usually listening. God sees your needs, He sees your want. Prayer to God offered in true belief and enduring faith is always answered. Maybe not in the way you thought it might be, but God hears you, He sees you and He answers you. No less an authority than Jesus Christ proclaimed this truth in Matthew 7:7–8

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Just as when you are grieving, when your heart is

broken, when you are at you wits end, call on God when you are in needs. You don’t know how He will answer, but you know he sees you, He sees your continuing belief in His power to do a good work in your life and He sees your need when you ask him in humility and trust. God saw Abram in his need and produced a great nation from his trust. How will God bless you in your need? Ask Him and find out.