Faithful Then, Faithful Now | The Reward of Belief - Genesis 15(Jan 22) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, that's our prayer.

God, that you would find in us, Lord, lives that magnify the name of your Son.

God, there's no greater purpose to live than to praise the name of your Son.

And yet, God, even as I sing that song, I'm so aware of the many areas of my own life, Lord, that don't magnify you.

Lord, ways that I try to magnify my own kingdom.

And so, God, we pray for your help.

God, help us, transform us as we stand in front of your word, Lord, as we sit here in your presence, God, in the presence of your Holy Spirit, who's here to convict, to challenge, to encourage, to exhort, God, to do what you need to do in us, Lord.

And so, Lord, we submit ourselves to your work and ask that you transform us, that increasingly as we leave this place, God, our hearts would be to magnify the name of your Son.

God, this is our desire.

We pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

As you grab your seat, you can take your copy of God's Word and open it to Genesis chapter 15.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

And as you're making your way there, I just want to update you on something that we've been praying about as a church.

Many of you know that uh one of our elders, Dave Locke, uh, last fall was diagnosed with lymphoma.

And so last week he went and had some scans, the names of which are a little too technical for me to understand what they mean.

So I'm just gonna say scans and trust that you believe that that was thorough enough.

And the report back is that he's free of any evidence of lymphoma.

So we praise the Lord.

We praise the Lord for that.

I praise the Lord for Dave and Sonia Locke and the faith that they embraced over this time, a faith that really said, no matter what God decides, we trust his will.

And that's a very difficult thing.

When you have your own plans for life, and you just freshly retire and you have a plan for the way that things should go, and then God kind of puts this thing in your way.

And it's a time to embrace faith.

It's really a clarifying time.

Time that you ask yourself the question, what's important in life?

And Dave and Sonia, what I praise the Lord is that they are such an example of what it means to embrace faith in the Lord, even when everything in life is going the wrong way.

I had a conversation, another similar conversation this week with a man who was in the hospital, and I'd never met this man, but in the final days of his life, he had the same crystal clarity.

There's something about that question of being so close to the end of your life that as you look back, you with crystal clarity are able to see what was actually worth pursuing.

And as this man was kind of close to the end of his life, he looked at his life and he wondered, having never really believed in religion, having never really believed in God, he wondered if he was missing the most important thing.

He wondered if there's something he should know before the end of his life.

And it really is true, isn't it, that in the final days of our life, we're given crystal clear perspective, especially as believers, that there's nothing more important to us than to have belief, than to have faith, than to have faith that secures for us eternal life.

And what God wants us to understand this morning as we open up Genesis 15 is right here, right now in this place, this morning, that the most valuable thing that you can have in your life, the most rewarding thing you can have in your life at the end of the day is belief and more of it.

Is a firmer grip, a firmer belief, a firmer faith in the promises of God.

And this is what we find in Genesis 15.

What we find is that God is promising to his children that if you believe, you will find the greatest reward for your belief.

And so we're gonna read this in a moment, but I just want you to, before we read this, I want you to see these words.

Look at me with genetic at Genesis 15, verse 1, and look at what God says to Abram.

Genesis 15:1

He says, Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.

Now look at verse 6.

And he he, Abram, believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Abram is promised a very great reward.

And we're told in Genesis 15 that the way that Abram receives that reward is that it is counted to him as righteousness through his belief.

And as we open up the scriptures, we find that all those who are used mightily of God, and we read this morning of a few in Hebrews chapter 11, believed that faith was the most rewarding endeavor in the world.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And this is what God wants to press into our hearts this morning, that the most rewarding pursuit you can take in your life is the pursuit of belief and more deeper belief in God's promise.

That's why the writer of Hebrews says, without faith it is impossible to please him.

For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Now, this is a difficult thing for us to hear, isn't it?

Because what the writer of Hebrews also says is that faith is belief in the unseen.

The reason why Abram is commended for his faith is because he believes in a thing that he has not yet seen.

And so the challenge for the Christian, the challenge for us is to say this: what's more valuable?

The unseen reward of pursuing God, the unseen reward of living a life of faith, trusting in God's promise, or the rewards of worldly prophet?

What's more valuable?

The unseen reward of our Father in heaven who smiles on our obedience, or the seen reward of maybe the pleasure of people who live around you, whether it's a boss or a co-worker or your family.

What's more valuable to you?

The unseen reward of joy and delight that comes from God?

Or the joys into the delights that you get pursuing worldly pleasures in whatever form they come.

Seeing all these things, we have a choice.

And the choice is what are we going to pursue?

The reward of belief that is a reward at this very moment that is unseen for us and for Abram, or are we going to pursue the seen rewards of this world that are fleeting and passing?

And what God wants to do in us this morning is firm up that belief that if I believe in God's promise, it will be the most rewarding pursuit I could ever take.

And so let's read this together.

You can follow along with me.

If you don't have a copy of God's word in front of you, well, the person besides you really is really nice, and they're going to share with you as well.

Genesis 15 says this 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.

But Abram said, Oh Lord, what will you give me?

For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Elizer of Damascus.

And Abram said, Behold, you've given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.

Behold, the word of the Lord came to him, This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir.

And he brought him outside and said, Look toward the heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.

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

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.

But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?

He said to him, Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other.

But he did not cut the birds in half.

And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram.

And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

Then the Lord said to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace.

You shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, the smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river of Euphrates, the land of the Canaanites, the Kenesites, the Cadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gergeshites, and the Jebusites.

Well, this is the story of Abraham's faith and God's promise, and what I want it to do for us this morning is gird up this belief that the most rewarding pursuit we can take is the pursuit of belief.

I want you to see the reward of belief this morning.

And the first reward of belief I want you to see is that when we believe, we're given perspective for our situation.

The reward of belief is perspective for my situation.

Now notice that the text begins by saying, after these things.

Now, as a student of Scripture, you need to know that one of the most important tools you have in Scripture is context.

And so you need to ask this question: what did this chapter come after?

You look back and you see that Abram had just had this encounter with the king of Sodom and the King of Salem, Melchizedek.

And in that encounter, God chose, Abram chose to pursue God's provision.

Abraham took this step of faith to say, rather than to take the worldly treasures that the king of Sodom is offering me, I am going to take the heavenly blessing that this king Melchizedek is offering me.

Abram had chosen the way of God's blessing.

Rather than trying to attain material possessions for himself, he had chosen God's way.

And now what happens in light of that choice is that after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

I want you to notice two things about this vision.

The first I want you to notice is that this vision that Abram receives is to highlight the word of the Lord.

Do you know that you come into this place this morning in the presence of a God who wants to make his voice known?

I often talk to unbelievers who say, Well, I would believe in God if he would just speak.

You know, as though the audible voice of God would be something that would really capture their attention.

And I say to them, Well, actually, God loves to speak, and he has spoken.

He has spoken through a book.

And in this book, we find that God is constantly communicating with his people.

Our God is a God who loves to speak, he loves to utter his word.

And so he appears in front of Abram and he appears in a vision, but the focus of the vision is always God's word.

And in the Old Testament, God had many ways to communicate his word to his people.

Many times he would communicate in visions, at times he would communicate in dreams, at times he would give impressions to the prophets, so that the prophets could say on their own accord, with their own voice, Thus says the Lord.

At times God would just speak to people directly.

And the question for us is, how does God speak to us now?

And the writer of Hebrews answers this question.

The writer of Hebrews, at the beginning of his book, he says, long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

The writer of Hebrews is looking back to this time.

There were many ways that God loved to reveal himself to his children, but then the writer of Hebrews says, But in these last days, the way that God loves to reveal himself to his children is by his son.

God has spoken to us by his son.

That's why everything we do as a church is done on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

Because we as a church want nothing then more than for you to hear the very word of God.

And God has said, everything I want to communicate is communicated not by a vision, not by a dream, but by the sending of my own Son.

God has spoken to us in such a deeply more significant way than the vision, dreams, utterances that the people of the Old Testament have heard.

He has spoken to us by his son and given us his word, every verse of this word pointing to the reality and existence and truthfulness of his son.

But I want you to notice also when this word comes to Abraham.

This word of the Lord, this appearance of God, this vision of the Lord comes to Abraham after he has made this huge decision of faith in front of Melchizedek.

The vision that God gives to him is a response to the test of his faith in verse 14.

And what you see in Abram's life is this kind of snowball effect of faith that happens in our life.

Do you know what happens as a believer?

I'm sure this is true in your own life as if you followed Christ for any number of years.

What happens is you kind of start to create this hall of faith in your life, don't you?

You as a believer, you start to walk through these difficult scenarios, these difficult moments.

Maybe these times in your life where you can even think back now and you're like, yeah, there was nothing.

I was just, there was nothing I could do.

I was out of ideas, I was out of responses.

There is nothing I could do.

And so all I could do was depend on the Lord.

All I could do is say, God, I trust you with this.

God, this is yours.

And then God showed up.

And what happens is, what should happen at least is that should really strengthen the next time you find yourself facing a trial.

Because you you look back on your own life and you say, Oh, I remember when God was faithful then.

I remember when I was had my back up against a wall then, and then God showed up and provided.

And if God was faithful for me then, he's gonna be faithful for me now.

I love that we sang this reality this morning, didn't we?

We sang these words.

You've been faithful through every storm.

You've been faithful through every storm.

Listen, church, you just sang those words.

Can I ask you, do you believe that?

You believe that?

Some of us might be willing to sing those words, but then when we really think about it, we look back on our some storms in our life and we think, God, I don't know how faithful you were in that.

I don't know what you were thinking when you led me through that storm.

And yet the word of God says that even though you might not understand that storm, even though from your perspective God might not have been faithful, the reality is the same reality as Abram had that God was your shield, that God was faithful through that storm, and so you can declare as you did this morning, you'll be faithful through every storm, you'll be faithful forevermore.

We declared this morning, you've done great things.

And then what did we say?

And I know you will do it again for your promises, yes and amen.

And our hearts in that moment should cry out, like we should not be able to sit in that moment, kind of like singing like this.

Because we look back on our life and we say, Yes, Lord, amen.

You've been so faithful to carry me through the hardest trials.

Of course you'll carry me in the future.

This is easier said than done.

So when God reveals himself to Abram and He says, I am your shield, and your reward will be very great.

Notice that Abram's belief in the situation doesn't ignore his current situation.

Abram's very honest.

Look what he says in verse 2.

Abram said, Oh Lord God, what will you give me?

It's kind of like this childlike response where God says, Your reward is gonna be very great.

And Abram says, Well, what is it?

Look at God, I got nothing.

You're telling me I'm gonna have a kid, but right now I continue childless.

And right now, if I pass away, I'm not gonna have a child to pass on my these things that you have won for me to.

I'm gonna have to pass it on to a distant relative.

Now, this is so important for us just to stop here and recognize that Abram's faith allows him to ask questions.

Do you know that the Christian faith is a Christian is a faith that loves questioning?

One of the things that I hope I never hear in this church, and every time I say this, it becomes kind of like my identity so that people become kind of scared to say it, but I'll say it anyways.

One of the things I hope I never hear is just stop asking questions, just believe.

Stop asking questions, just believe.

Do you know that there are kids who have grown up in the church and then started asking questions, and the response that they've been given is just have faith.

Don't ask that question, just have faith.

As though the Christian worldview, as though God's uh all the truth that he has given us in this word could not stand to the questioning of a teenager.

The reality is that the Christian worldview can stand to the greatest questioning.

This is why Paul kind of has this confident faith that says, hey, try to poke a hole anywhere you can in the Christian worldview.

And he even says, hey, if you can prove that the resurrection never happened of Jesus Christ, you know what, we're all more than fools for following this faith, for following this worldview.

You need to know that as a believer, you have the freedom to ask questions, but you also have the freedom to engage with the secular world in a way that says, hey, let's ask questions of this faith together.

And what you will find is that the most consistent, the most truthful, the worldview that makes the most sense of this world that we live in is the Christian worldview.

You find perspective in God's word to view the world.

And so Abram looks at God and he asks this question like, God, how are you gonna be this?

And Abram isn't condemned for the question.

Instead, what God does is to say that Abram needs to view things from a different perspective.

It's very interesting, isn't it?

In verse 3, Abram tells God to behold.

You know what it means to behold something?

It means to look.

We don't use that word very much.

I think we should bring that into the vocabulary.

You should maybe at lunch today say to your family, Behold this sandwich that I made, and everyone will look.

Like, what's so special about that sandwich?

Well, that's what Abram does.

God, God, look at my situation.

God, I don't have a child.

God, look at this.

Look at my situation, look at how I'm perceiving things.

There's no way you can be faithful because from my perspective, God, not your promise is not happening.

Then look what God does in verse 5.

And he brought him outside and he said, Look.

He said, Look toward the heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.

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

See, what God does for us is say that our greatest need is not to view things from our perspective.

The reward of faith is that we get to pursue things from God's perspective, which is the true perspective.

And the reason why so many of us so often fail and struggle with belief is because we view things from the wrong perspective.

Instead of viewing things from the perspective of God's word, we view things from our own perspective.

Like Abraham, instead of believing that God would be his shield and that his reward would be very great, we view things from our own perspective and we say, God, uh you don't seem like a shield to me.

You don't seem like you're very rewarding to me.

Problem is we have the wrong perspective.

Now I wear glasses in this room.

One of the things that you get to do when you wear glasses is play the game with other people every once in a while called How Terrible Is Your Vision.

If you're a glasses wearer, you're probably very familiar with this.

People look at you and they, you know, after calling you four eyes, they say, Hey, I want to see how bad your vision is.

Give me your glasses.

So you do a glasses swap.

And if you get the wrong prescription, it's impossible to see anything with clarity.

Like you can't really even walk straight, let alone like function in life.

If you get a prescription that's either way too light for you or way too heavy for you, you're not driving anywhere.

Because your perspective is all out of whack.

And as believers, this is the reality that we need to come to terms with: that our perspective is so limited that we cannot understand the things that is that God is doing.

But what God offers us is to view things from his perspective.

God offers us glasses to see our situation with proper perspective, and those glasses are belief in his word.

God calls us to view our lives from the perspective of who he says he is rather than our own understanding of our circumstances.

See in Abram's life, God's perspective is that he will be his shield.

And God promises Abram that he will protect him and he will reward him.

And when Abram questions that God affirms his promise you will be rewarded.

And so Abram believes in God in verse 6.

And this is exactly what we need to do.

We take off the glasses of our own blurry perspective and we put on the glasses of God's word.

When we're suffering and in trial and nothing in our life is going the way that we would plan it, instead of doubting God's care for us, we believe God's word that says He is a shepherd who will guide us.

And we're tempted by sin to believe that the reward we could get in our sin is greater than the reward God offers in obedience, we put on the glasses of God's word to say that He promises that the joys of this world are fleeting, but the joys of the Lord are eternal.

What about when we sin?

We feel like we can never deserve God's forgiveness.

And our perspective of ourself is that our sin is so great that God could never forgive us.

We pick up God's word and we put on God's perspective that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us.

This is what faith does.

Belief it puts off our interpretation of our life and it puts on the glasses of God's word to say that God's interpretation is what is true.

Faith it gives us perspective for our situation.

Well the second thing I want you to see that's a reward of belief is that the the reward of belief is assurance for my faith.

Reward of belief is assurance for my faith.

And so a verse one to six deal with believing God's promise is true, verse seven to 21 really deals with how Abram can know that God's promise will come true.

This is the next question that God asks look what he says in verse what Abram says in verse eight.

He says oh Lord God how am I to know that I shall possess it what Abram wants is like the stamp of assurance.

I want to know I want to know for sure that your promise is going to come true.

You know what we find in this chapter?

We find that God is a God who loves assurance.

God does not want his children walking around wondering if his promises will come true in their lives.

That's not what faith is.

God wants his children walking around with the assurance that his promises will come true in their lives.

This is what comes with the Christian faith is the assurance that God's promise will prevail.

That if he promises to save at the end of your life he will save this is the assurance of faith that there is nothing that can take the promise of God away from his true children.

This is the reason why Christianity stands superior to every other worldview.

You know what the one major problem with every other religious belief is that in order to be sure of your faith you need to climb to the top of the mountain.

The way that you meet with God is by your own works by the things that you do.

And in order to be assured of your faith in order to be assured that God is going to give you eternal life whichever God it is what you need to do is just be a better person.

Keep climbing that mountain keep going go higher go higher go higher and I promise you I've had this conversation countless times.

If you talk to anybody outside of the Christian faith and you ask them how do you know at the end of the day that you will be saved the answer is that they don't at the end of the day.

You don't really in all reality know if God has not promised to save you you don't know if you will be good enough to be saved.

And the difference in the Christian faith is that you are given assurance because instead of climbing up the mountain what God has done has climbed down the mountain to meet with you.

God has come to meet you where you're at so that you have every reason to have assurance.

God loves assurance.

And even though God offers his children even though God offers usurance of our faith this morning many of us don't live in it.

And so I want you to see in this text how God offers us assurance.

It's the same way that he offered Abram assurance.

Notice that in verse seven the way that Abram is to receive assurance first is from his salvation by God that he is a child of God.

So that God says in verse 7, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.

Every time that God talks to his people about the work that he is going to do in their future God always points back to the work he's done in the past every time.

He does it with Abram here.

Abram says God how do I know that you're going to give me an heir?

How do I know that you're going to give me the land and what God does is say hey I brought you out of the land of Ur to give you this land God says you can be sure that if I started this work in you I'm going to bring it to completion.

This the whole purpose I brought you Abram is to give you this new land.

And so you have enough assurance in your salvation.

You know what he says to the Israelites when they get out of Egypt?

Israelites say God how do how do we know that you're going to bring us to this land like we had it pretty good in Egypt.

You remember the Israelites saying that there was meat in Egypt there was bread in Egypt.

Now we're in the desert and it seems like we have nothing like I'd rather go back to the slave the the slavery of Egypt and what God says to Israel is I brought you out of Egypt.

I brought you out of slavery.

And in Exodus 20 verse 1 that's what he says before he gets into the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:1

God says to the Israelites before you understand how you need to live for me you need to understand that I brought you out of Egypt to live for me.

This is the very reason you're here.

And so he says the same thing to us.

He says the very same thing to us.

The reason you have been called from darkness as a Christian the reason why you have a testimony to say that you once lived in darkness and now you live in the light is because God did a work in your life for the very purpose of you living in the light.

God called you out of darkness into the light.

And as we stand and we say God how can I be sure that you're going to bring me into eternal life God points us back to our testimony and says hey did I save you?

Did I call you out of darkness?

Do you know why I did that?

So that you would live in the light.

And the work that I began in you he says in Philippians chapter 1 verse 7 I will bring to completion.

Philippians 1:7

This is why what happens so often in scripture as it talks about our baptism, Paul constantly calls us to look back to our baptism, to remember your baptism.

He says in Corinthians to the church, remember we were united through baptism.

Well how were we united through baptism?

It's not like we were all baptized in the same water.

Well it's because of what baptism symbolizes it symbolized when you stood in that water it symbolized that you had faith that cleansed you of your sin.

It symbolized an external symbol of an inward reality that you stood there as the old you and then you were put under the water and if you were to be held under the water now I promise that doesn't happen at this church next week we're doing some baptisms I always 100% bring the people up okay just want to make that promise in case any people are scared about baptism 100% guarantee rate on baptism.

And so I get distracted baptism.

It's an old you're held under the water and if you were there you would die see being underwater it symbolizes death.

Do you know whose death it symbolized in your baptism if you're baptized in Christ it symbolized the death of Christ for you.

And what happened is is there's a group of witnesses at the church and especially the elders have affirmed that hey your testimony is true.

This experience of grace has happened for you and so we're going to symbolize this in baptism where the old you stands there and you're under the water and now you're dead in Christ.

If you were to be held there'd be a physical death but it's a spiritual death to yourself you're united with Christ and brought up now in new life and the church goes crazy.

They're losing their minds again just preparing you for next week when we do baptism because now it's a celebration of this new life that you now stand in.

And Paul constantly calls us like in Romans 6 to look back to our baptism.

Hey remember your baptism remember what it symbolized it symbolized this reality of the faith that you had placed in Jesus Christ for salvation.

And you can be sure that if you were baptized into Christ he will continue to do that work of regeneration of cleansing in your life see our salvation it gives us assurance if God called us out of darkness he will lead us into light but it also the next mark of assurance we have is that God has covenanted with his people.

So it says this in verse 18 I'm skipping ahead a little bit here but that the Lord made a covenant with Abram.

And this covenant is really initiated in verse 9 where God tells Abram to collect these animals and then to cut these animals in half.

What the covenant is it's a kind of an ancient Near Eastern commitment you make to each other.

It's almost like a modern day contract.

And one of the closest realities we have of the covenant is really in marriage where two people stand in a ceremony that is very important and they declare to each other, I will be with you forever.

I'm committed to you.

This is a covenant we're making together.

And this was a business transaction that happened in the ancient Near East pretty often where if there was some negotiations happening between two people they would make a covenant and they would ratify the covenant like this.

What God does with Abram is he enters into a covenant with him.

And that covenant is a commitment that Abram makes that God makes to Abram to say Abram I'm going to I'm going to do this this promise of a child this promise of land I'm not just saying this I've committed this I'm entering into this covenant with you.

I'm committing myself to you and what we have as believers through Jesus Christ is entrance into a new covenant a greater covenant than Abram had with God a covenant that is initiated by the blood of Jesus Christ.

See in this covenant God gathers together animals and cuts them in half but in the new covenant God sends his own son.

And you know what happens every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper you know the words that Jesus tells us he says this is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

You know what's supposed to happen every time you come to the Lord's table?

You have this assurance that your faith will be rewarded that you will receive eternal life because the bar to the Lord's Supper is not your righteousness the only thing you need to have in order to engage in the Lord's Supper in order to be reminded of this new covenant this new commitment God has made to you as his child the only thing you need is faith.

There's no righteousness check as though you need to live to a certain standard.

If there were, that would mean your assurance comes through works, not through faith.

Instead the only thing you need to do to partake in the Lord's Supper, to be reminded by God of his commitment to you is have faith that it cleanses you.

The blood of Christ cleanses you.

And God's given us the Lord's Supper as a reminder of our covenant.

Now understand this okay I very intentionally used baptism and the Lord's Supper as two examples because you know what the Lord wants to do in your life through the two symbols that he's given to the church?

Through the two ordinances he's given to the church to constantly remember whether it's the baptism of a new believer or the continual taking of the Lord's Supper what God wants to do in your life is continually give you assurance that you are his child.

So that you can constantly look back and remember the day that I was baptized into union with Jesus Christ and then take the Lord's Supper and it's this continuation, this reminder by Jesus Christ himself that this covenant applies to you.

God assures us through the covenant he makes with us.

The last way I want you to notice that we find assurance is through the sacrifice.

And so notice that God sacrificed animals here.

This is not the first time that God has confirmed his love for his people through sacrifice.

You know what happened what happened with Adam?

What happened with Adam as soon as Adam fell God sacrificed an animal and clothed Adam.

And the same is true with Abram the assurance that he finds that God's promise would come true is the assurance of this sacrifice.

Part of the covenant ritual would be for God to walk through these cut pieces that are cut in half and placed on either side and God will walk through these pieces to say if I don't keep my end of this fulfillment that this needs to happen to me.

The sacrifice needs to happen to me.

And you need to know that the ultimate assurance that you have that you will be given eternal life is the blood of Jesus Christ.

This is what Paul says in Romans 5 verse 8.

Romans 5:8

You know this verse he says it says God demonstrates his love for us how?

Do you remember how?

It's not by your good works.

And yet that's often how we think God demonstrates his love for us in our own minds, isn't it?

We think well God will love me if I'm just a really good person.

Like if I just get my life in order then God's going to love me.

If I just read the right books if I just say the right words if I just go to the right meetings then God will love me.

But that's not what Paul says it says God demonstrates his love for us not by our church attendance not even by our endurance in the faith.

Well Paul says that God demonstrates his love for us by is that while we were still sinners Christ died for the ungodly God says this I want you to have every assurance in the world that I love you.

And so I'm going to give you this gift so that every time you look at it you never have to question my love.

And this is the gift that I've given you I'm going to send Jesus Christ to you in the fullness of your sinfulness in the fullness of your ungodliness.

I'm not going to send Jesus like once you've got your life together you ever hear people say that you've ever said that yourself?

Well I'll start you know going to church I just got to get my life together a little bit I'll get baptized I just got to get my life together you know I just need to be at this certain point.

And Jesus says I didn't come for the person whose life is together.

I didn't come for the person who got to a certain point of maturity.

I came for the person who is at the very bottom of the life of their life what what God says is I came for the sinner.

I came for the ungodly and so do you want assurance in your life?

Here's the question you need to ask if you want assurance of your faith the question you need to ask is this are you a sinner?

If the answer is yes you've got one step completed next question you need to ask is this are you ungodly?

If the answer is yes you've got two out of three steps completed.

And the next question you need to ask is did Jesus die?

And if the answer is yes what God offers you is assurance because Jesus died for the sinner and for the ungodly that's your assurance.

What many of us are seeking is kind of this pharisaical assurance this assurance of this outward if I just wash the bowl the right way if I just look the part then I will be assured that I am a Christian.

Then I'll be assured that eternal life is mine.

God says look to the cross look to the cross.

You know in some ways a good illustration of this should be our marriages.

Unfortunately marriage has kind of like degraded to such a point in our culture that it's no longer like this but the point of marriage is supposed to be this that like why do we do this ceremony?

That's what I want to ask anyone recently married you especially asked that question after you kind of like look at your bank account after the the ceremony you're like why do we do this?

Why do we do this ceremony where the the woman dresses in like this crazy elegant dress that's super unfunctional with the giant train they gotta have like three people walking behind them.

It's kind of weird isn't it why do men well why are they so willing on that day to to look so sharp for at least one day?

Why?

Well it's because that's an important moment when you two stand together and you commit to each other and you make this commitment hey I'm in this for life till death do us part.

And that is supposed to be a day that you remember for the rest of your life because marriage is supposed to endure forever.

And when things get challenging you look back to that day and you said hey hey hey we both committed to that we both committed to this for life.

We both covenanted this for life and so you look back to your wedding day and God in his relationship has done that same thing for you in the cross to say if you ever question my love for you you need to look no farther than the cross and ask this question did Jesus die?

And my love is completely demonstrated for sinful, ungodly people assurance in Jesus Christ.

But there's more reward that we get for our belief and I want you to see that the next reward we get is contentment for my future.

Look at what Abram is told then this is one of those stories by the way that we like have kind of become familiar with like oh Abram's covenant with God here it is you know I've been in the church for however many years heard this a thousand times and we just kind of get familiar with it.

And you need to read it with fresh eyes sometimes to read kind of sometimes how ridiculous some of the details are notice in verse 12 it says as the sun was going down a deep sleep fell on Abram and behold dreadful and great darkness fell on him.

And then the Lord said to Abram Abram's just remember been given this assurance of faith like hey hey I'm going to do this promise.

But then look what the Lord says to him know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there.

Okay wait pause for a second what did God just tell Abram hey Abram by the way I'm going to give you a family but they're going to be slaves in Egypt.

They're going to be slaves in a land that is not theirs.

I'm going to give you land but there's going to be a period where your offspring are going to be slaves and look what else he says they will be afflicted for 400 years.

And in verse 14 but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

And if that was not comforting then his offspring would face the slavery look what he look what he has for Abram in verse 15.

As for you shall go to your fathers in peace.

You shall be buried in a good old age.

And Ebra says oh great like God's comforting to me is like hey listen Abram you're going to die all right and you're not going to get anything I promised you.

Try that with your spouse okay just just constantly confront them with their death hey you're going to die soon okay I just want you to remember that that's what God does with Abram.

And yet what God is doing is providing Abram with this comfort in knowing that despite the fact that for the next four generations it's not going to look like his promise is being fulfilled Abram has every reason to trust because God knows the future and he plans the future and his timing is perfect.

And Abram is told by God hey it's it's not going to look like my promise is coming true but I'm giving you this assurance that I know the future I'm planning the future and that my timing is better than yours.

And you know Christian this is the assurance that you have I don't know the specifics of what you're walking through right now but I'm trusting that there are some things That you are waiting on God for.

There are some things you have been praying for that you have been pleading with God to do.

You've been asking God to change the circumstance of your life.

You've been asking God to save your children.

You've been asking God to provide in this way.

You've been asking God to heal this sickness.

And it just doesn't seem like he's answering.

You wonder sometimes, is he even is he even listening?

And what God wants us to hear here is that he knows the future.

Three things I want you to see about God's knowledge of the future and why you can be content in your future.

I want you to see that first that God knows.

Is that what he says to Abraham?

Verse 13, know for certain.

Know for certain.

Listen, there's nobody in the universe who can say about the future, know for certain.

You can be pretty knowledgeable about certain things, but you can't know for certain.

But do you know what the God who knows all things, the God who created this world, he knows every single small little detail of your future.

God knows what you're going through.

As you're walking through your suffering, as you're walking through your trial, God isn't like surprised.

Oh man, I was not expecting that turn.

It's not like a suspenseful edge of the seat movie that your life is for God.

He knows the future.

But God doesn't only know the future.

What he's telling us here is that God knows the future and he plans the future.

Look at this, okay?

You guys gotta do some work with me right now.

Can you open up to Exodus chapter 12?

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

Remember what God just told Abram.

Remember the prophecy that God told Abram.

As you're opening to Exodus 12, let me just remind you a few certain details.

He says, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be slaves there.

Well, some of you guys know when what's coming up here.

They'll be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried in good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation.

Well, then look what it says in Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

In Exodus chapter 12, verse 36, it says, And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked.

Exodus 12:36

Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

What did God say?

God said, Hey, I know for certain that your four generations from now, your children are going to go into a land that is not theirs, and they're gonna come out with great possessions.

And now, here in Exodus 12, God has planned circumstances exactly as that.

They leave having plundered the Egyptians.

They take so much that it's actually kind of like inconvenient for them.

In verse 39, it says, They baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared themselves any provisions for themselves.

And listen to this in verse 20.

The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.

And at the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

And it was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

What God does in Exodus 12 is fulfill the promise that he had given to Abraham exactly, detail by detail, to the very T.

And what God is affirming for us is that he not only knows our future, he plans it.

God doesn't just make a bet on Abram's life.

God knows exactly the details of his life, and he's planning the future.

And it's true in your life.

God knows the future, and he's planning the future, so that nothing you've ever faced is a surprise to him.

But one last thing that I want you to be encouraged by in God's knowledge of the future, and that is that his timing is perfect.

So that in verse 16, it says that God has a plan.

That they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

What God is saying to Abram is that it's gonna take a long time for this trial to be finished.

It's gonna take a long time for my promise to come to fruition in the life of your offspring.

But listen, there is a reason.

It's because the sin of the Amorites is not yet complete.

And as soon as the time is right, God says to Abram, I'm gonna act in power in your life, and I'm gonna bring these promises to fruition.

And God says the same thing to us.

In 1 Peter chapter 1, he says that any trial that you have ever faced has only that you have only faced because it has been necessary for you.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

God never puts his children in the furnace without purpose.

He never puts his children in the furnace for longer than they need to be.

He always has a purpose in your waiting.

And even though you may not know the purpose, you have this assurance that God does know the purpose.

God is not trying and failing to accomplish something in your life.

God is waiting for the perfect moment to accomplish his will in your life.

This is because God knows and God plans and God's timing is better than my timing.

And some of us need to take this phrase and, like, I don't know, tattoo it on our arm, put it on our mirror, repeat it to ourselves every day because we stop believing it.

We need to remind ourselves time after time, God knows my future, God plans my future, God's timing is better than my timing.

It needs to be said by so many of us in so many different situations.

It was said by us as a church just a few short weeks ago, wasn't it?

When I stood up here and I announced, hey, church, we are like unbelievably behind in our giving.

And we need to step up by faith and trust that God is going to provide through us.

And yet God knew.

God planned, and he waited till the very last moment, as God so often does, to provide for our church in the most significant way.

Needs to be said to us by us when our kids aren't saved.

God knows.

God plans.

God's timing is better than your timing.

He knows what he's doing.

That's not a promise that your kid will be saved, but it is a promise that he's in control in this very moment and he can work apart from you.

You know, as a church, we long for the day that we have a building.

And as elders and as a church, we're just constantly reminding each other, God knows.

God plans.

God's timing is better than my timing.

And someday we're gonna get into a building, and the stained glass is not gonna be there anymore, blinding the left side of the room.

And God knows, as you suffer in the Shekinah glory, blindness of that stained glass coming through the light, God knows.

And He plans.

You know, my wife and I have found such comfort in the life of Abraham as we've been working through this, as we've just been in a period of waiting, as we've come to the, you know, New Market, and we really feel God's called us here, and we feel so many confirmations of God's promise to us to come here and to be the pastor here.

And when we initially heard about the position here, God moved so quickly, like quicker than we were ready for.

Felt like you're strapped into one of those roller coasters.

You know those roller coasters that just start too fast?

You're like, listen, engineering's good.

We don't have to start any faster than this anymore, okay?

Just too fast.

That's what life felt like for us.

And within three weeks of hearing this position, we were hired for the position.

And God was just moving in all these ways that we just knew it was God's hand.

It had to be God's hand.

And yet here we are, seven months later, and we don't have a house yet.

And we just, you know, we go through these seasons of just pleading with God, God, you know, you've called us to this place.

It seems right that you'd get us a place to live in this place that you've called with this people that you've called us to shepherd.

And this week, you know, my wife and I, it's really in God's timing.

We we kind of like, one of us is up, the other one's down, and well, one of us is down, the other one's up.

It always works like that, but we've just leaned in the life of Abraham and recognized if this was our plan, the best time for God to fulfill his promise, the best time for God to work in the way that we want him to work is right now.

Isn't that true?

If we had it our way, we're saying, okay, God, right now, right now, do it.

God loves us more than that.

He's so patient, he steps back, says, I know the future.

I've planned the future.

My timing is better than your timing.

And so we've just had to sit and say, say, humbly, God, God, you know better than us.

And this is in your hands.

You're gonna do what you want to do when you want to do it.

And so we trust you, God.

We're content with the future because you know you plan, your timing is better than our timing.

One last reward I want you to see.

It's the reward of substitution for my sin.

In verse 17, the covenant happens, and a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the pieces of these animals that have been cut in half.

And the question I want to ask for you here is a little bit of a Sunday school question: where's Abram?

Where's Abram in this moment?

Well, it's significant that we're told where Abram is in verse 12.

It says Abram was in a deep sleep.

And it's significant that the fire pot and the flaming torch passed through these pieces without Abram.

You can be sure that Israel, as they looked at this, as they heard this story, knew exactly what the fire pot and the smoking pot and the flaming torch meant.

This was the presence of God.

You remember how God led Israel through the desert?

It was a fire by night and a cloud by day.

And here we have every witness to say that God's presence was passing through these pieces, but Abram wasn't there.

And what God was declaring by passing through these pieces that if the covenant isn't fulfilled, then just as these animals were sacrificed, so the person that doesn't keep the covenant will have the same fate.

And God passes through these alone because he knows that Abram can't keep the covenant.

He knows that Abram can't fulfill his end.

He knows that Abram is a human sinner.

And then as this covenant progresses, the people of Israel will continue to fail him.

So God passes through this covenant alone to say that there is only one assurance we have that this promise will be fulfilled.

It is that I have said I will do it.

And then a thousand years later, after Israel has failed, time and time again, God comes back himself.

It's Jesus Christ.

And his arms, like we sang this morning, are spread on the cross, open wide on the cross, nailed to the cross.

Christ dies to take the penalty of the covenant.

Christ dies because the people that God covenanted with could never be faithful to him.

Christ dies as the substitute.

This is the ultimate reward of belief.

What we find in belief is that the penalty for our sin, the wages of sin, which is death, is taken from us and given to Christ as a substitute.

And there is a great exchange there where instead of paying for the penalty that you deserve to pay because of your sin, you now inherit the reward that you could never inherit because of Christ's righteousness.

Your robes of filth and sin and unrighteousness are taken off, and the robes of righteousness, of Christ's righteousness, are put on you.

Christ, who knew no sin, has made sin so that you might become the righteousness of God.

And this is the ultimate reward of belief.

Is that on that cross Jesus takes your sin and gives you his righteousness?

And so the question for us as a church, as we consider the reward for belief, as we consider the assurance that we receive in belief, as we consider the perspective, as we consider the contentment and the substitution we receive in belief, the question for us as a church is do we want to battle for these things in our life?

If the answer is yes, do we want these things?

Then the only response is to live a life of increasing and deepening belief in God's promise.

And so we're going to sing as an opportunity to respond and just say, God, I believe in all that you have said you will do in my life.

Would you stand with me as we pray and the worship team comes to lead us in worship?

Father, we thank you, God, for the promises you have given us.

That there is no pursuit in life more rewarding than the pursuit of belief.

And God, we pray, Lord, that you would, even in this moment, as we respond in this song, by the presence of your Holy Spirit and the power of your Holy Spirit working in us, God, strengthen and deepen our belief in you.

God, that we might leave this place believing, Lord, that you exist and that you reward those who seek you.

And there is no better place to be found than in the place of believing your promise to be true and living in light of it.

And so, God, we lift these words to you to declare this truth, Lord.

We believe in all that you are, in all that you say.

God, we pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.