How can I know God?

Now, can you turn with me in your Bible to Genesis chapter 15 on the church Bible?

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

! That's on page 15. As we look at some scenes from the life of Abraham.

The question that we're asking ourselves today is, how can you and I know God?

So Genesis 15 and at verse 1.

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision.

Do not be afraid, Abraham. I am your shield, your very great reward, or your reward will be very great.

But Abraham said, Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless

and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?

And Abraham said, You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, This man will not be your heir,

but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.

He took him outside and said, Look up at the sky and count the stars, if indeed you can count them.

Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

Abraham believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness.

He also said to him, I am a Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.

But Abraham said, Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I shall gain possession of it?

So the Lord said to him, Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.

Abraham brought all these to him, cut them in two, arranged the halves opposite each other.

The birds, however, he did not cut in half.

Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abraham drove them away.

As the sun was setting, Abraham fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

Then the Lord said to him, Know for certain that for four hundred years,

your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own,

and they will be enslaved and ill-treated there.

But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions.

You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here,

for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

When the sun had set, darkness had fallen,

a smoking brazier with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.

On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham and said,

To your descendants I give this land, from the wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates,

the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephites, Amorites, Canaanites,

Girgashites, and Jebusites.

Amen.

So for the last two weeks, we've been asking some big questions together,

and we've been using the life of Abraham for some answers.

So two weeks ago, we asked the question, what's gone wrong with the world?

And as we went to the Tower of Babel, we saw the problem of human pride,

of a seeking of glory that at the same time meant walking away from and rejecting

a relationship with the God who made us.

And then last week, we were asking the question, who is God?

And we saw that he is the personal God, and he is a God who makes promises,

and he is a God who offers grace, and who offers us a way back to life with him.

And also, we saw that God wants us to know him.

And so this week kind of follows on as we ask the question, well, how is it that I can know God?

And this matters, because one of the things that the Bible wants us to understand

is that you and I were made for God.

I imagine a good number of us have been to Edinburgh Zoo or some other zoo in our time.

And it's great fun to go to a zoo, and you see beautiful animals, and you see magnificent animals.

But I wonder if you've ever had the experience as you've, you know, looked at the lion in the cage

or the monkeys in their enclosure of thinking, it's a little bit sad at the same time, isn't it?

Because we know that these animals were made for something more.

Every Christian, we share a story.

We have come to discover personally that God is good.

We have come to know the joy of friendship with God through Jesus.

We've come to understand, in the end, what we were truly made for.

And that's what we want everyone else to know and to experience.

That's why we worship.

That's why we share the good news of Jesus.

So that other people might experience God's love and grace for themselves.

And so our goal today is to show from Genesis 15, how is it we can know God?

And what we see really are two sides of the same coin.

So we're going to see, first of all, the human side.

And there's that emphasis on faith that trusts God and trusts God's promises.

But then we also see God's side.

We see the faithfulness of God, his commitment to make promises and to keep those promises.

And so we're going to come across an important word today.

I guess we don't use it that much.

It's the word covenant.

Maybe in a wedding ceremony, we might hear it.

Marriages, we might think about it.

And it's a reminder that it's a particular kind of relationship.

Because I guess we've had experience of different kinds of relationships.

If we talk about a consumer relationship, we probably have a sense of what that looks like.

You know, we're asking the question, what can I get out of this relationship?

I will stay in this relationship for as long as I feel it benefits me.

And if it doesn't work anymore, then I'll move along.

That's a consumer relationship.

But then there's a covenantal relationship.

And whenever you hear the oaths of a marriage ceremony, you owe for better, for worse, for sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer.

It's a reminder that it's a greater level of commitment.

Consumer relationships don't provide the same security that a covenant does.

It's covenant that shows here is a genuine commitment, come what may.

And what we discover is that covenant commitments become the basis for life actually flourishing really well.

And the good news of the Bible is that God's love, it's not based on a consumer agreement.

It is entirely covenantal.

And we can know God because of his covenantal love and through faith in Jesus.

So we're going to think of two sides of the same coin.

First of all, the reality that faith trusts God's promise.

So that takes us to Genesis 15 verses 1 to 6.

Genesis 15:1–6

So have a look at the text with me.

And you'll notice right at the beginning it says after this.

So we're jumping into the story.

So we need to ask very briefly, well, what's just happened?

And if you've got time, you can read chapter 14.

And you will discover that Abraham's nephew Lot has been taken as a prisoner of war.

And Abraham has really bravely gone with some of the men of his household.

And he's rescued his nephew Lot.

He's joined in a battle against an alliance of kings.

And then after the successful battle, it's this really interesting moment where he refuses to take a reward from a king he regards as wicked.

And then we get to after this.

And so what comes next deliberately follows on.

So after this, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision.

Do not be afraid, Abraham.

I am your shield.

Your reward will be very great.

And God's making a striking point here.

So remember, Abraham's just been in battle.

But now God comes to him and says, you weren't afraid in that battle.

There is something more to be feared than war.

And there's something to be feared is to be in the presence of the holy God.

And then God says to him, Abraham, know this.

I am your shield.

And your reward from me will be very great.

God is Abraham's king.

God is Abraham's protector.

God will give Abraham his reward.

God is God's kingdom.

And so, so far, so good.

Because here we have another example of the personal God.

And he's coming near.

And he's showing his commitment.

He's making a promise.

God is on Abraham's side.

But then what comes next?

Look at verse 2 and verse 3.

We find complaint.

Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless?

Back in Genesis 12, God promised to give him a child.

And from that child would come a nation.

Here's a huge challenge that we have within the Christian faith.

This gap that can exist between God's promises and our reality.

So three times Abraham has been promised a child.

But as of yet, still no child.

And in that gap, it can be so tempting to question, is God good?

Is he for me?

Is he going to keep his promises?

And so one of the things that we need to do as Christians is we need to learn to mind the gap.

So Abraham says to God, well, what use is reward if I don't have a promised son?

If I have to leave it all to a servant rather than to an heir?

Where's the value in that?

Abraham is living by faith.

But he's discovering it's really hard at times to wait for God's promise.

Something else for us to notice for our own lives.

Notice that Abraham doesn't give in to bitterness.

He doesn't let that eat him up from the inside.

Rather, he does the right thing.

What's the right thing to do?

He prays.

He laments.

He takes his concern and his complaint to God.

It's a reminder to us to be honest when we pray.

Because after all, God knows.

He knows the situation and he knows us.

And what he's doing is he is claiming God's promise.

And he's, as it were, holding God to his promise.

Well, you said.

So where is he?

Listen to the prayer of this old man of faith.

He begins, sovereign Lord.

He knows the covenant Lord is king and he is in control.

And again, don't we find that sometimes as Christians, that can be challenging.

So life gets hard and things are distressing.

And sometimes it makes it even harder when we know, well, God's in control of everything.

And so he has permitted this.

And I don't know why, but sometimes that makes things hard.

Abraham says directly to God, verse 3, you have given me no children.

So he knows life comes from God and he believes God is able to do the impossible.

But here he is living in the gap between God's promise and his reality and it's tough.

And it reminds us that sometimes the Christian life is hard.

And sometimes discouragement is real.

And we pray and we don't see answers.

And what should we do?

We don't give in to bitterness.

Rather, we are to follow Abraham.

We take it to the Lord.

We take our list of worries and we turn it into a list of prayers.

We lament.

We don't turn away from or against God.

We turn to God.

And so the Lord listens to his prayer.

Good news that God listens to prayer.

And his word comes.

So now look at verses 4 to 6.

So after we've seen the context and we've seen the complaint, then there's this counting that goes on.

And first of all, look at what Abraham is invited to count in verse 4 and 5.

So Yale University in the States, they have produced a bright star catalog.

So apparently with the naked eye, there are 9,110 stars that are easily visible.

Listen to verse 4 and 5.

This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.

He took him outside and said, look up at the sky and count the stars.

Indeed, you can count them.

Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.

So God speaks to Abraham in the middle of the night.

He wakes him out and he calls him out of his tent to look up.

Remember, he's living in kind of deserty conditions, so there's probably not much cloud.

So it's a beautiful, bright, starlit night.

And he gives him the sign of the stars to make his promise visible.

And the point is not, okay, let's see what the exact number of stars is.

Those are the number of children that Abraham's going to have.

It's the idea that he is going to have lots and lots and lots.

There's going to be a big family.

And that family is not going to come through a servant, but through a flesh and blood heir.

And so we're learning something really important with Abraham,

that the God who made the stars and the God who numbers and names them,

he can raise up a son for Abraham beyond all human hope.

And that principle is one we will see again on Easter Sunday

when his own son is risen from the dead.

So that was Abraham counting the stars.

And then wonderfully, we find God counting in verse six.

Abraham believed the Lord and the Lord credited it or counted it to him as righteousness.

So we get this wonderful example of a repeating pattern of Abraham's life.

He doesn't do this perfectly, but he does it often.

God said it.

I believe it.

End of story.

Here comes God's staggering promise made to an old man in the wilderness,

married to a lady who can't have children.

And Abraham again responds with faith.

And it's that response.

It's as he believes God's word of promise.

That's why God counts it as righteousness.

He is credited with that status of being right before God

because Abraham by faith believes God's word of promise.

Abraham didn't do anything.

He didn't do some great moral deed.

He didn't perform some great moral action.

Abraham looks with trust.

And clings with trust to God and his promise.

And so we need to get this right.

It's the message of the catechism as well.

Christianity is not a religion that says you need to perform to earn God's favor.

No, Christianity says that we are saved by Christ alone.

He does everything for us.

By God's grace alone, we don't merit it.

And that comes to us through faith alone.

And that faith, remember, is a gift from God.

And so faith is really a matter of running into the arms of Christ Jesus

and trusting that when God says he will save and keep us,

we can take him at his word.

To give us some pictures, faith is the small child on the edge of the swimming pool

diving, trusting that their parent will catch them when they hit the water.

Faith is Mary Jane Parker.

When the building is about to collapse, reaching up and taking Spider-Man's hand,

trusting that he will catch her and hold her.

Or to look at some examples from Jesus' life.

Faith is like blind Bartimaeus.

When he hears Jesus is coming by, screaming his lungs out,

Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

It's the father desperately pleading for his son.

I do believe, but help my unbelief.

Faith looks like the thief on the cross,

turning to look at Jesus,

suffering and dying in agony.

And saying to him,

Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

If you and I want to know God today,

Abraham becomes for us a model of faith.

Because what we see in Abraham is what we need to do.

We need to respond with trust to God's word of promise to us.

We need to trust in Jesus,

God's good news message,

God's promise to us.

In the Bible, and we've seen this,

we discover there is this universal problem of sin and guilt.

That we have rebelled,

we have wandered away from God,

and we've broken that relationship we were made for,

and we cannot fix it.

So we are separated with no way home,

except that God sends his son Jesus.

And Jesus comes by the grace of God to justify us,

to give us a new status before God,

to wash away our sin,

and to bring us back home.

And on the cross,

this wonderful exchange happens.

So as Jesus takes our place on the cross,

and he takes our sin upon himself,

and he takes on himself the death that we deserve,

our sin is counted to Jesus' account.

And he is punished,

and he feels that sense of being separated from his father.

And then when we believe in Jesus,

his perfect righteousness,

well, that's counted to our account.

And that's how the father,

though he is holy and perfect,

he can look on us,

and love us,

and welcome us.

Not because of anything that we have done,

but all because of his goodness and grace in giving us Jesus.

And faith trusts God's promise in Jesus.

So that's one side of the coin,

but we also need to think about the faithfulness of God to his promise,

and that's there from verse 7 to verse 21.

Verse 7 reminds us of a promise earlier made,

I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans

to give you this land to take possession of it.

Now, as people,

we make promises all the time.

We make promises when we are children.

We'll be BFFs forever.

We make promises to the people we love,

I will always love you.

We sign contracts.

We make oaths.

But sadly,

you and I know this,

because of our fallen condition,

often we don't keep those promises.

We change our mind.

We forget about them.

Or we simply find ourselves unable

to carry out what we hoped we could perform.

And so we might think,

well, if God is like that,

if God is in any way like us,

then I'm not sure he's a God I can trust.

And especially perhaps when life gets hard,

can I trust his word that he won't break it?

Will he really love me to death and beyond?

And I think that's where Genesis 15

becomes so helpful and so powerful for us

because Abraham discovers

in a really visual and dramatic way

that God is utterly committed,

utterly faithful.

He establishes a covenant that he will not break.

And do you know,

it's part of God knowing us so well.

He knows that in our own human weakness,

we need visuals.

And so he gives visuals to the church.

Next Sunday,

we'll share the Lord's Supper together.

And bread will be broken.

And wine will be drunk

as a reminder of God's,

Jesus' body broken and his blood shed.

We have it at baptism.

God chooses to make the gospel,

the good news visible to us

to strengthen our faith in his faithfulness.

So we're going to think really briefly

about the promise that God makes to Abraham

and the sign that he gives.

So we saw in verse seven,

there's the promise

that he would receive

what becomes known as the promised land,

the land of Canaan.

And then later in verse 13,

if you turn over the page to verse 13,

now God speaks to Abraham in a vision.

So it's nighttime

and he comes to him again.

And in this vision,

we discover this promise

that he receives from God.

Well, it's going to be slow

because notice that it's going to take 400 years

of Abraham's descendants

being strangers and slaves

before the promise is going to be fulfilled.

So it's slow,

but it's also certain,

know for certain

that God will act in his good timing

to ensure that his promise is kept.

Verse 16,

we're reminded something of the patience of God.

The end there,

in the fourth generation,

your descendants will come back here

for the sin of the Amorites

has not yet reached its full measure.

God's promise was somehow connected

with this idea of a judgment

on the people in the land,

but God was showing patience

and giving them the chance to repent.

Peter picks that up in the New Testament.

God's not slow in keeping his promise.

Some people think that,

but actually he's patient

so that you and I would have a chance to repent

and turn back to trust in Jesus.

So that's the promise to Abraham.

I will give you descendants

and your descendants will

in the fullness of time

receive a land.

But then we come to the sign

and this is the really interesting bit.

And this takes us to the idea of covenant.

So just to go back

to where we think of covenant,

perhaps most naturally,

think about a marriage as a covenant.

At that marriage ceremony,

there is always the covenant sign.

Remember when the rings are exchanged,

those rings are a sign

of covenant commitment.

Well, God has a different kind of sign

of covenant commitment here.

I'm not sure it would take off

in our modern wedding ceremonies,

but it says something really powerful.

So we need to turn to verse nine and 10

and picture for just a moment,

old Abraham.

He's over 75 years old,

somewhere between 75 and 86.

So he's an older gentleman

and he's been sent on a mission

to gather these animals.

So he's got to gather the heifer,

the goat, the ram,

and a couple of birds.

And then what he has to do with the animals,

but not the birds,

is he has to kill them

and he has to slice them in half.

It's not a job for the faint hearted.

And then what he has to do

is he has to create some kind of aisle.

So there's one half over here

and one half over here.

And you might be thinking,

what in the world is going on?

At that time, cultures vary,

at the time of Abraham,

there was a particular kind of covenant ceremony

that spoke of both commitment

and curse taking.

So picture a couple of kings.

They've come to a decision

that they're going to make a peace treaty.

There's probably a greater king

and a lesser king.

As they make this agreement

and they write down,

here's their commitments to one another

to kind of ratify this agreement,

to sign at the bottom of the page.

They don't just get the bit of paper out

and have like a nice ceremony

of writing with photographers.

What they do is

they create this aisle

with the dead animals

and each of them walks through that together.

And they're saying to one another

and to everybody else that's watching,

we will do what we have promised to do.

And if we don't,

may we be torn apart like these animals.

So a really graphic way to say,

I am absolutely committed to this promise.

And if not,

I fall under the curse.

Okay?

So we've got the picture.

And Abraham's created the picture.

And now what we need to see

is the really astonishing,

wonderful thing about this picture

in verse 17,

which tells us so much

about God's relationship with us.

When the sun had set

and darkness had fallen,

a smoking brazier

with a blazing torch appeared

and passed between the pieces.

On that day,

the Lord made a covenant with Abraham.

Okay?

Who walks through

the aisle of the cut-up animals?

Well, it's not Abraham

because he's fast asleep.

But instead,

what Abraham gets in the vision

is a picture of God himself.

Because fire and smoke

is a picture of God's glory

and God's presence.

And so what we have

is God walking through alone.

This is a one-sided covenant.

This is God committing

to keep his promise.

This is God saying to Abraham

and saying to us,

I would rather be torn apart

than for my relationship

with humanity to be broken.

Now think about how committed God is

when he performs this act

in the vision.

And think about what it means

for you and I.

If we are to know God,

God must take the initiative.

God must make promises.

And God must act on those promises.

And God must keep those promises.

And in Jesus,

he does.

So as the storyline of the Bible continues,

and this idea of God's covenant

commitment to people continues,

we get an even greater sign

that shows us

just how committed God is to us

and how willing he is

to undergo the curse for us.

And it's there with Jesus.

Because here is Jesus,

the living God,

who takes on human nature

so that in the end

he will taste death

in the place of covenant breakers

as he suffers and dies on the cross.

And what the Bible tells us

about the cross

is that there on the cross,

Jesus goes under the curse

of the covenant

as if he'd broken the law.

He hadn't, we had,

but he takes our place.

Jesus takes the curse of God

in full.

Nothing left for us.

If by faith

we trust in Jesus,

then blessing flows to us

because Jesus took the curse instead.

And because Jesus was willing

to be forsaken by his Father,

that's how we can enjoy

relationship with God.

Jesus took our place

and took our punishment

so that God might be our God

and we might be his people,

that God might be our Father

and we could know him

as his children.

The story of Abraham

reminds us

that the way to enjoy

the life with God

that we were made for

rests in God's covenant commitment

to us in the Lord Jesus.

So how can you and I

know God today?

We trust

his promise to us

in the Lord Jesus.

I imagine we will have seen

images at various times.

Maybe you've seen it

in real life.

Those moments where,

let's say,

a big whale

beaches,

you know,

they kind of get washed in

for some reason

or get in distress

and they end up ashore.

And it usually makes the news.

And if you watch the news,

you see these rescuers,

you know,

small people compared

to this massive whale

and they've got their tiny buckets

and they're throwing the water on.

They're doing everything they can

to save this whale

and there's something so sad

and pitiful about it

because we know

and they know

that the whale is made

to swim

in the depths of the ocean.

Do you know,

God's message to us

in the Bible

is that you and I,

as people made by God

in his image,

we were made to swim

in the depths of God's love

and God's grace.

And whenever we try

to find life

in something else,

it always falls short

of what we were made for.

So when we find ourselves

looking for a love

that lasts,

we're invited to come

to Jesus,

Jesus who died for us

and rose again for us

who says,

I am like the husband

who is committed to you,

committed to death

and beyond,

committed to always be with you

and for you.

That's what Jesus says

to his church,

to his people.

When we're searching

for the security

that we need,

we need to turn to Jesus

because while other people

may let us down,

while we let others down,

God cannot break his promise.

God cannot be untrue

to himself.

When we trust in Jesus,

he will be our God,

we will be his

and he will never leave us

or forsake us.

And so we discover

in the story of the Bible

that Jesus and Jesus alone

gives us the relationship

that we were made for.

And we don't need

to search for it

and we don't need to fight

to make ourselves worthy of it.

Rather,

we turn to him by faith

to receive that relationship

as a gift.

And when we do,

well, you and I then enter

the joy of God's covenant love.

Let's pray together.

Our God and our Father,

we thank you for this story

that speaks to us

of your covenant love

and reminds us of our call

to exercise faith.

And we thank you

for the way this imagery

speaks to us ultimately

of Jesus' body being torn

so that our relationship

with you could be healed.

It speaks to us

of your commitment

to save a people for yourself,

to give us the privilege

of life with you.

Pray that as Christians,

we'd never take that for granted,

but rather we would always enjoy

our life with our God.

And we pray for those

who aren't yet Christians

that you would enable them

to see and to receive

this gift of life with you

through trusting in Jesus.

And we pray in his name.

Amen.