Genesis 15 is one of the major chapters in all of Scripture. The conversation between Abram and the LORD, followed by the covenant ceremony, marked a new stage in the relationship between God and His chosen servant. What impresses me most about this chapter is how fully real is Abram. In many ways, he acted like I would act, and he acted like I know many of us do act.
To remind you where we are: Abram left his homeland and all security to go to a land that the LORD would show him. The LORD promised, “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.” The LORD promised land and offspring. That was Chapter 12. After Abram got to the land that the LORD showed him, difficult times hit – specifically, a famine – and he went to Egypt in search of food and a better life. You might remember how he convinced the Egyptians that Sarai was his sister and not his wife; and after that was discovered, the Pharaoh threw him out of Egypt.
In Chapter 13, Abram and his nephew, Lot, went back to the land God had promised to Abram and his descendants. Lot and Abram both prospered and Abram recommended they split up to preserve family harmony. After Lot had departed from Abram, the LORD told Abram to raise his eyes: as far as he could see to the north, south, east, and west; that was the land that the LORD would give to his offspring. Abram built an altar, renewing his worship of the Most High God. At some point, Lot was taken captive in a war between kings. Abram went out and heroically rescued him. On the way back, Abram met Melchizedek, the King of Salem, a priest of the Most High God, who set out bread and wine for him. Abram received a blessing from Melchizedek and Abram gave him a tithe of all he had recovered. That was chapter 14.
Now, we get to our verses in Chapter 15.
Abram was struggling like we struggle.
Some time has passed.
Let me say that again. Time has passed.
Remember, Abram was 75 years old when the LORD first told him to leave to go to the land that he would show him. Abram was not getting any younger and time was ticking. And – never mind Abram on this Mother’s Day, think of Sarai: she was no younger, either.
So, when Chapter 15 begins with “the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great,” Abram’s response was fairly pointed, “Really? What will you give me? Why am I still childless?” Not just once, but Abram rephrased it in case the LORD did not understand exactly what he was saying, “You have given me no offspring.” Abram was expressing frustration with God for things Abram thought should have happened long before now.
What do you do when it seems like God has forgotten his promises? What do you do when all you are doing is waiting? How do you hold onto hope when time simply keeps passing by and things are not the way they are supposed to be?
Abram was waiting for offspring. For the last year we have been waiting for this pandemic to end. Some people are wait for healing as they languish through symptom after symptom or deal with chronic pain. Others wait for companionship through day after day of loneliness and separation. Others wait for financial help or aid of other kind. Still others wait for the kingdom of heaven to be revealed – or at least some evidence that it is coming. Others wait for vision or connection and a myriad of other things. What do you do when all you are doing is waiting?
Paraphrased, Abram asks, “How can I trust you when I still do not have a child?” God had promised in 12:2, 12:7, and 13:16 – multiple promises, made years ago.
Do you struggle trusting God? I do. It is a struggle. It can be painful. It takes faith to continue on a path when you wonder if God is real, whether God is true, trustworthy, or whether you have understood correctly.
Sometimes, when people are struggling, we say things like, “It’s part of God’s plan.” We mean well and we do not know what else to say. We say that in an effort to comfort them – and ourselves – to move them off their focus on what causes them pain. We get anxious when suffering people express their hurt towards God, as if God will be offended. But God does not rebuke Abram for feeling the pain, God does not rebuke Abram for asking the pointed question. That is important for us to realize; God is big enough to hear our complaints. God is not fragile. God is able to hear our pain, hear our anger and our frustration, even when those feelings are directed at him.
Psalm 3 says, “Rise up, O LORD! Deliver me, O my God!”
Psalm 4 says, “Answer me when I call, O God of my right!”
Psalm 5 says, “Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I pray.”
Psalm 10 says, “Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
And we could go on and on. God’s song book is full of laments and cries and exhortations for God to stand up and act.
When someone dies, when someone we love is ill, when we are ill, when someone we love has experienced heartache, or when we have experienced heartache, God is able to hear, “I hurt,” or “I am angry,” or the from the depths of our gut, “Why?” We do not need to protect God from those feelings, as if we will hurt God’s feelings by expressing them. He knows. He knows our frame, He knows our hurts, our pains, and our sorrows.
Abram’s question was pointed and direct. God took it. God took it because Abram was expecting God to be God; Abram was not questioning whether God was God. Abram expected God to live up to what he promised.
Look.
At the same time God is willing to listen to our hurts and our hearts, we need to be ready to listen when He speaks.
God’s response to Abram was to repeat the promise “Your very own issue (child) shall be your heir.” Then, the LORD took Abram outside. The sub-text of the LORD’s instruction to “look” is, “I made all these stars; I am God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; you do not need to worry about whether I will be able to accomplish what I have said.” The LORD invited Abram to look.
Step outside. Look. Try a different perspective.
When we take a step outside and remember who God is and who is God, we can see that God is both able and willing to live up to his promises. We know that because Scripture teaches it; but Abram had to learn by faith. Abram saw the stars and remembered that God was God Most High; we can look at the stars and we can look at God’s power revealed through Scripture: we know God delivered on his promises through Abram’s son, Isaac; and we know God delivered on his promises by blessing all the families on the earth through him in his descendant, Jesus Christ. That is what God has done; if we look we can have faith that God is able and willing to be true.
When you get stuck, step outside and try a different perspective. Look. Remember who God is and remember who is God.
Abram went outside. He looked. He looked and he believed God.
Righteousness Reckoned.
“And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” It was believing the promise of God, the word of the LORD, for which Abram was reckoned righteous. Belief is a matter of conviction rather than awareness. It involves trust more than knowledge.
R.C. Sproul described it this way,
The children of God are rather different from the children of men. We have been reborn by a sovereign God. They have not. We have been redeemed by a sovereign God. They have not. We are being remade by a sovereign God. They are not.
Despite these things that distinguish us, that set us apart, there are yet ways where we are very much like those outside the kingdom. We, both inside and outside the kingdom, have drunk deeply of the modernist conceit that we are defined by what we know. Thus, we think the difference between us and them, between sheep and goats, is a matter of knowledge. We are those who have been blessed to have the truth revealed to us. Once those outside the kingdom have the truth revealed to them, we seem to think, they will become just like us.
Jesus, of course, dispelled this nonsense. Indeed, His harshest words while ministering on the earth were directed at the scribes and Pharisees, the most widely read, the most highly educated, the most in the know. What separates us in the end isn't that we know that Jesus is the Son of God, the promised Messiah. What separates us isn't that we know He suffered the wrath of the Father in our place on the cross. What separates us isn't that we know that the third day He rose again. Remember that the Devil himself believes all those things. The difference is that we not only know these truths but trust in them, cling to them, depend upon them.[1]
Put it this way: without God, Abram knew for sure that he was going to be childless. His only hope was with God. Abram put his trust and his hope in God; and that is the only right relationship there is. “Ok, God Most High, Maker of Heaven and Earth, I put my hope in you. I will live in the hope that your promises are true.” Hard? Yes. Unreasonable? Yes. Is it folly in the world’s eyes? Yes. Is it necessary? Absolutely.
Gerhard von Rad, one of the great Bible scholars of the last century, described the impact of Abram’s belief, this way,
Abram’s righteousness is not the result of any accomplishments, whether of sacrifice or acts of obedience. Rather, it is stated programmatically that belief alone has brought Abraham into a proper relationship to God. God has indicated his plan for history, namely, to make of Abraham a great people; Abraham “has firmly assented” to that, i.e., he took it seriously and adjusted to it. In so doing he adopted, according to God’s judgment, the only correct relationship to God.[2]
Righteousness is a matter of being in the right relationship. It does not mean we are more knowledgeable, more pious, more gifted, more accomplished, more secure, more anything in our own strength. Scripture does not say Abram danced a happy jig or sang a happy song. Scripture says he believed. He trusted God.
One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, "Jump! I'll catch you." He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: "Jump! I will catch you." But the boy protested, "Daddy, I can't see you." The father replied, "But I can see you and that's all that matters."[3]
Could you jump? Are you willing to risk your life on his promises? Or, are you waiting for him to come onto the roof and actually deliver you before you believe and trust? “Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.” Hebrews 11:1-2.
Scripture says Abram believed the LORD and that righteousness was reckoned to him. Righteousness is being in a right relationship with God, where our trust and our hope are in God. “For God so loved the world that he agave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him would not perish but have eternal life.” That is righteousness reckoned to us.
God’s covenant for the land.
The second part of this chapter’s conversation is a discussion about land. Again, here is a promise for which the fulfillment has been delayed. He has lived there, migrated from there, returned there and continues to live there. Again, Abram asked the pointed question, “O LORD God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
God took a different approach to the topic of the promise of the land. What followed was in the form of a covenant that Abram would recognize.
This covenant ceremony followed a pattern known in the ancient world. The covenant partner passes through the split animals, expressing the notion that, “May it be to me as with these if I fail to abide by the terms we have set.” Covenants were not generally made between equal partners; one would be markedly stronger. Further, covenants often were made between parties who had been previously opposed.
God covenanted with Abram, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the land of the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Ultimately, the expanse of the land described here was the scope of the land held by Solomon at the height of his kingdom generations later.
This is a statement of sovereignty. God Most High, maker of heaven and earth, has unilateral right to determine the use of his creation. It is his option and choice to give the land to whomever he chooses. The big deal here is that God has tied himself to Abram, and by extension, to all of us. God is personally involved with humankind – with you and with me.
God has bound himself to humankind on his own initiative. He was not obligated. We have no claim against him. It is a remarkable thing God has done, and it is perplexing to us.
As a regular practice in a confirmation class, a pastor held up a jar filled with jellybeans. He asked the class to guess how many jellybeans were in the jar. He wrote their guesses on a large sheet of paper.
Then, next to those estimates, he helped them make another list: Their favorite songs.
When the lists were complete, he revealed the actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looked over their guesses, to see which estimate was closest to being right.
The pastor then turned to the list of favorite songs. "And which one of these is closest to being right?" he would ask. The students would protest that there is no "right answer"; a person's favorite song is purely a matter of taste.
Then, the pastor asked, "When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song?"
Always, the pastor says, from old as well as young, he would get the same answer: Choosing one's faith is more like choosing a favorite song.[4]
In one way, that is a correct answer – faith is a matter of choice. It is a matter of choosing each moment, each day, each week, etc. However, it is incorrect that any choice is correct or even that the correct choice is ours to make: it is God who has chosen. God has chosen to tie himself to us, to love us, to redeem us, to effect his plan for salvation and glory through us, to sustain us, and to draw us to himself. Whether we choose to believe does not change the truth of God’s choice.
God has chosen to covenant with us and God has made his covenant absolutely binding. The weakness of the weaker party – Abram and his descendants – is played out through the remainder of Scripture. The failure of Israel to live in trust, faithfulness, and hope in the living God was a breach of that covenant to the core. God would have been justified to walk away; instead, he remained bound to redeem Israel. In the midst of the judgments (experienced as curses) against Israel, God’s promise of redemption through a Messiah remained consistent.
In Jesus we have that new covenant. “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood for the forgiveness of sins. Drink of it, all of you.” Jesus did what we could not do: washed us clean so that we could live in a right relationship with God. Do you believe? Abram believed and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
Conclusion
So, what do we take from all of this? God works in God’s ways. It may not make sense to us, it may take generations longer than we ever expect, but God works in God’s ways. Righteousness comes from living in trust that God is God, and living in the expectation that God will be God.
In hard times, in empty times, in times of sorrow – as well as good times and times of joy – we can know that God has bound himself to us. Go out believing that, knowing that your trust and hope in the LORD is the right (and righteous) relationship.
Amen.
Prayer
Questions:
Have you ever been frustrated with God because things are not as they should be? How have you handled it? How would you comfort a friend who is frustrated with God?
- What do you see when you look? What happens when you remember who God is and who is God?
- How do you understand “choice”? What difference does the choice you make have on the rest of your life?
[1] https://rcsprouljr.com/be-still/
[2] Gerhard von Rad, Genesis, p. 185.
[3]http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/f/faith.htm
[4] Tim Stafford, Christianity Today, September 14, 1992, p. 36.