Recharge | The Global Church: The Promise to Abraham

It's good to see you all again.

If you don't know me, I'm Chad.

I'm the missions pastor here at First Baptist, and it's definitely my honor to get to share with you guys tonight from Recharge.

If you're here last week, I started with this uh picture of my old basketball team, and uh some of you struggled to figure out which one was me.

And uh so I don't know if you guys have seen this uh or spent any time.

It's a really bad picture, but uh there it is, uh the tall, skinny white kid.

Yeah.

The thing is, in ninth grade I was fully grown.

So the guy on the other side of the coach uh ended up being like six, six, and I thought, you know, he's gonna be six six.

I'm gonna I just stopped growing in ninth grade, so I uh stayed right there at 5'10, no, 5'11 and a half, and in the army that meant I was 5'11.

Everywhere else I've been telling everyone I'm six foot.

So uh if you ask me, I'm gonna tell you six foot.

Well, uh last week we we were talking about God's heart for the nations and how God has embedded this vision for all the nations from the very beginning of scripture.

And so Jason introduced it a couple weeks ago.

Last week we talked about the calling of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, that God said that through Abraham's blessing he was going to bless all the nations of the earth.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And today we just want to unpack that just a little bit further because there's the story of Abraham is actually one of the foundational stories of what you might call the Abrahamic religions.

Do you know there's three major religions that all think Abraham was the father of their faith?

The first one, obviously, is Judaism, right?

It's the core of the Israeli belief system.

And in Christianity, we all know that.

But this story from Genesis 12 is foundational.

Paul references it, Jesus references it.

The life of Abraham stands as a one of the major stories of the foundation of how we know God and his interaction, because it started with the way he interacted with this one guy.

But even later, when Islam started in the 600s, they claim Abraham as their father as well.

And so tonight, as we go through this, um, what I want you to see is that God blessed Abraham.

And there's actually lots of ways in which God did that.

We'll talk about three different ways that he blessed him.

But beyond that, I want you to see that the blessing of Abraham had so many, so many different impacts.

And so it's hard to follow when God says in Genesis 12, I'll bless those who bless you and curse you over curse you, and all the nations of the earth who blessed through you.

It's hard to know how to interpret that.

And I want to just kind of walk through some of that tonight.

And so I want to tell you it's an impossible task.

And we're going to start tonight in Genesis chapter 15, uh, five and six.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

And God's talking to Abraham, he's kind of unpacking what this covenant with Abraham is gonna look like.

And he takes him outside.

This is verse five.

He says, He took him outside and he said, Look up at the sky and count the stars.

If indeed you can count them.

Have any of you ever tried to count the stars?

What about you?

Have you ever looked up and seen all those stars?

Have you tried to count them?

There's a lot of them, right?

And depends on where you're at.

If you're out in West Texas, like uh, what's that big park out there, the Big Bend?

There's a few stars you can see from Big Bend, right?

Uh and and and and then if you ever, if you're in the city, it's a little harder, but you still see more than you could count.

Somebody actually told me that they've tried to count them, and they're in the trillions of stars at this point, based on the number that they actually can see through with the naked eye and with telescopes and all this other stuff.

Can you imagine trying to count trillions of stars?

Well, later on, God says that he'll also say that the descendants of Abraham will be like the sand on the seashore.

Have you ever put a handful of sand in your hands?

Have you ever just put a little bit on your finger?

Have you ever thought about even trying to count the amount of sand?

Like the amount that rinses off of you into the bottom of the shower is more than we can count, right?

And so think about the sand on the seashore.

So this is the what I want you to think about is the scope.

If you're using stars and sand, God's usually to say that this is what your descendants are gonna be like, Abraham.

And if you think about what God expects from them, that those who are blessed through Abraham will be a blessing to the nations, he's expecting to that that that blessed people to number in the tens of thousands of millions of trillions.

You get what I'm saying?

The scope of the blessing of God is limitless.

And he expects that that blessing will one day be a limitless availability to the world around them.

And so think about that as we go through tonight.

So he took him outside, he said, Look at the stars, count them if you can.

He said, So shall your offspring be.

Abraham believed the Lord, and I love this.

It says that credited to him as righteousness.

Think about that.

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

The Hebrews author uh in the New Testament makes a lot out of this statement.

He talks a lot about by faith, this person did this, and by faith this person did this.

And then God gave them righteousness because of their faith.

And their faith is backed up by these big actions, and we're gonna look at one of them in a few minutes.

But I want to ask the question how many offspring would Abraham have to have if you're thinking about this idea of stars and sand?

Think about this this picture.

Uh I uh ChatGPT made one here for me.

Like, how many descendants?

What would the offspring look like?

And then think about this.

We have a big problem.

When God gives this promise to Abraham, how many offspring did Abraham have?

If you know the story, he didn't have any.

He didn't have a single child.

In fact, he complains to God and says, Here's the problem, Lord.

The only heir in my house is this servant.

This one guy is like the best guy in my house, and everything I have is gonna be his.

And God said, That's not gonna be who inherits your house.

And then if you remember, the story goes a little further, and and Sarah gets nervous and says, We can't give it to an heir.

So she gives Abraham her handmaid, and he has a child through the handmaid.

And who's the child?

The first child of the firstborn of Abraham is a man named Ishmael.

We're gonna talk about that here too.

So look at me with Genesis chapter 17, 1 and 2.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

We're gonna walk through this Genesis 17 a little bit together.

In 17 it says, when Abraham was 99 years old, is there anyone older than 99?

I don't see a single hand.

Okay.

Just so you know, if you're not 99, you still might have a kid one day.

That's not what you thought I was gonna say, did you?

It's just not off the table.

I'm just saying, it's the scripture here.

The Lord appeared to him and said, I am the Lord God Almighty, walk with me faithfully and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between you, and you will greatly increase your numbers.

You keep going.

In verse five, he says, No longer will you be called Abram, you will be called Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations.

I will make you very fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.

He says later, starting in verse 15, he's talking about Sarah.

God said to Abraham, his new name, as for Sarah, your wife, you're no longer to call her Sarai, you're gonna call her Sarah.

I will bless her and surely give you a son by her.

I will bless her that she will be the mother of nations.

Kings of peoples will come for her.

By the way, look at 17.

I love this.

Abraham fell fast face down.

He laughed, and he said to himself, Will a son be born to me a hundred years old?

Will Sarah build bear a child at the age of ninety?

If any conventional wisdom says, Nope, it's impossible.

And yet God says, verse 18, God said to them, um, oh, Abraham said to God, so he laughs.

By the way, Sarah gets in trouble for laughing later.

It's funny that Abraham doesn't get in trouble, but that's a different story.

Uh, verse 18, Abraham says to God, If only Ishmael will live under your blessing.

So think about this.

This is again, Abraham's pushing back, he's arguing a little bit.

Okay, we've gotten past it, it's not my servant now, it's gonna be the son of Hagar.

And uh and God says to him, Yes, basically, look at this.

Can Ishmael receive the blessing?

Is the question.

And look at the answer.

Yes.

Circle that in your Bibles because it's an important thing to put aside.

It's not the primary, and we're gonna see there's a difference between the son who receives the blessing and the other son who's also blessed, but also receives the covenant blessing.

There's two different pieces here.

So, yes, Ishmael will be blessed, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.

I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

Oftentimes when we think about this blessing of Abraham, we we literally limit it to just the people of Israel, which become the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Right?

Jacob has 12 sons that become the 12 tribes of Israel, and by the time they leave uh Egypt, they're they l they number in the million, right?

There's a lot of them.

But don't forget that that God said to Abraham, I'm gonna bless those who come out of you, and that there's gonna be many nations that come out of Abraham, and many of them are gonna be blessed.

And so I want you to look just for a minute here at the Ishmael story.

So this is in verse 20.

God says, As for Ishmael, I have heard you, and I will bless him.

I will make him fruitful, and he will greatly increase his numbers.

Look at this.

He will be the father of twelve rulers.

Did you know that was in there?

Who has twelve sons?

Twelve rulers.

This sounds very similar to the blessing that Isaac will receive later, is it not?

Very, very close language.

It says, I will make him into a great nation.

If you go back to the original promise in Genesis 12, it's very, very similar here.

It's not until you start to see this next verse, but my covenant I will establish with Isaac.

And you see there's this distinction between the two.

Does Ishmael receive the blessing of Abraham?

Yes.

Does Isaac receive the blessing of Abraham?

Yes.

These are really two important things.

But as we think through, what is the ultimate blessing of Abraham?

It's the person of Jesus.

Right?

So even as you narrow, if you were to start with Abraham and go to Isaac and then Jacob with the 12 sons and the millions of descendants that become Abraham's descendants through the Isaac lineage, you end up with one Jesus.

And through Jesus, that ultimate blessing, who's blessed?

All of us, all of the nations.

And so I want you to see that this blessing of Abraham really goes in a lot of different ways and has a lot of different places.

So if someone asks you the question, will Ishmael be blessed?

What would the answer be?

Yes, the blessing of Abraham would extend to Ishmael, but not in the same way as it will through Isaac, even though it's very similar, even down to 12 rulers.

It's interesting that they include that particular detail when you contrast it with knowing that Jacob has 12 sons.

Very similar.

And then let's jump ahead just a little bit further.

So Genesis chapter 22, this is now the Isaac story where Abraham has just been told to sacrifice his one and only covenantal son, Isaac, and he he puts him on the altar and he is about to put him to death, and the angel stops.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

And then this is what God says to Abraham in verse 15.

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time, and he said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son.

Again, think about this language.

Does it does this sound?

Think about John 3.16 language, right?

I will bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.

So it's a reiteration of the promise that he'd given him earlier.

Your descendants will take possessions of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all the nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.

So how many offspring would Abraham have?

When you think about the scope of the blessing of God for the blessing of the nations, how how limitless is it?

Literally, it's it's it's impossible to count.

Unfathomable is the type of language we get to.

Paul ties into this in Galatians chapter 3, and we're almost to the end here.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Verse 8 and 9, it says this that the scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham.

Again, we could spend a lot of time trying to talk about what it would look like if we try to look for the gospel in Genesis 12.

Right?

But here it is, and Paul's saying that all the nations will be blessed through you.

This is the beginning of this gospel, that God is going to provide a way for all of the nations, all of the peoples of the earth to be blessed, all of them to be in good relationship with the Creator God.

And verse 9 says that those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

So he's basically saying, if you have faith, then you can receive the blessing that Abraham was given and continues through us today.

If you go one more, jump one more with me to verse 26, Galatians 3, 26.

It says, So in Christ Jesus, you're all children of God through faith.

For all of you were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Therefore, there is neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free or male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So look at verse 29.

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise.

What promise?

Guys, it's the Genesis 12 promise.

I'll bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and all of the nations of the earth we bless through you.

You become the conduit of God's blessing to the nations.

If you are in Christ, you are an heir of Abraham.

It's not about bloodline, it's about whether or not we have faith to believe that the God who has called us his own is faithful to forgive us of our sin and justify us in Christ so that he can be made famous in us.

When people see us, they see him and give him the glory.

Last week we talked about God receiving the glory.

It's all about his glory.

And all of these conversations, all of this starts all the way back in the beginning of scripture where God made mankind to be his image so that we could represent him in this world.

And so we have a task.

We're gonna end on this picture again.

We have this task to be stars and sand.

Other places they use metaphors like salt and light.

We're supposed to be like fresh water overflowing to bring uh to bring moisture to this parched world.

We are the ones that God has embedded the blessing for the nations.

So I hope that this has opened your eyes a little bit.

God intended to bless all of Abraham's descendants.

The Muslim world believes that they're the sons of Ishmael.

They think the Jews are the sons of Isaac, and they say that they're also sons of Abraham, and you can very clearly see that in our own scriptures.

But it's a different place, isn't it?

One gives us Jesus.

Both of those, Muslims and Jews, rejected Jesus.

Right?

And so it's in Christ that we find our hope.

And it's in Christ that we become the very blessing that Genesis promises to Abraham and his lineage.

Let's pray.

Father, we love you, and we thank you that you've included us in this plan that goes back thousands and thousands of years.

4,000 plus years ago, you're calling Abraham to be yours and you're promising to bless the nations.

And God, we are here.

We are some of those nations who have received that blessing.

We pray, God, that you would use us to continue to bless the world around us.

That God, we would do good things in your name by your spirit.

And God, you would receive praise and glory and honor.

That Father, your name would be made famous.

That God, people would put their faith and trust and hope in you, and that they would be credited righteousness as they find Christ.

Help us, Father, to represent you well in this world.

We love you, Jesus.