By Faith

You have your Bible. Go and make your way to Genesis

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

chapter 15. We're going to split this

chapter into two sections this week and next week as you turn

to Genesis 15. I know this might sound odd for

me to say, but I I do think you're turning to one of the

greatest chapters in all the Bible.

That may sound weird because all of it's inspired, all of it's

perfect, all of it's profitable, and yet there are sections,

there are times you come to pieces of it on which the whole

message, the whole landscape of Scripture hinges.

And that's one of these places in Genesis 15 specifically.

When we get to verse 6, is it, is it going to give us a

viewpoint of the landscape of the message of the Bible?

That's going to help everything be clear and make sense.

And I think you'll see that as we get there to kind of help

maybe set up what I mean by that Genesis 15 verse 6 and what it's

Genesis 15:6

going to do for us. Let me just introduce it with a

with a little story. As I've told you before, I like

stories of survival. And here is 1.

I got asked after the first service, did these young boys

survive this? They did all right.

If I don't say that at the end, they made it.

It was January 1991 and 19 year old David Scott and 20 year old

Scott Power had a lifelong dream of going to the far north, out

in the wilderness and living off grid for one year.

Now you may just think they're crazy and they probably were all

right, but that was their dream. That was their goal.

They prepared, they planned, and they took a Bush plane into the

northern far reaches of Manitoba, Canada.

The closest town to where they were was Hudson Bay, which is

also known as the polar bear capital of the world.

So this is what they're encountering.

All right, so when they get dropped off, the plan is to land

by a small lake and then take a three mile hike from that

landing spot to the cabin that they anticipated being about a

three hour hike. The problem was after 8 hours of

hiking, it's now the middle of the night and no cabin.

Well the terrain they're in is flat, trees are thick, snow is

deep, and it's 30 below 0 where they stopped.

They only had their sleeping bags and not their tent because

they plan to sleep in the cabin and not their tent.

They thought they'd go back for them later so they put one

sleeping bag on the ground and they both get in the other one

doing what they had to do to survive.

They continue to search for the cabin and finally on the 6th day

only one of them is able to search.

That's David. Because Scott's feet have turned

black with frostbite. David finally has an idea.

He sees up in front of him this large group of massively tall,

high rise spruce trees. And he thinks if I can just get

to the top of one of those, I might could see far enough to

Orient myself to the landscape. I might be able to get an

orientation and a handle on where I am and where the cabin

is, and we might could have a chance of survival.

But this might be my last decision because if I fall from

that tree, it's over. But it was the only option that

he had. So he climbs to the top and sure

enough, he gets to the top and he can look out and see about

1/2 mile away there's a tiny lake.

And he says, surely I'm going to climb back down and then find

that lake on my map and then Orient where we are on this

river, where that lake is versus where the cabin is.

And sure enough, he does. They had been searching for five

days about a mile north of the cabin up river, but he had no

idea he was in the wrong spot until he could see from the

height of a tall spruce tree. Genesis 15-6 is like a massive

high rise spruce tree of the Bible.

It's like a navigational beacon, if you will, allowing you to get

a site of the landscape, and not just the landscape of the Bible,

but maybe even to see where your own soul is in relation to where

the Bible says it should be. And if lost or disoriented,

figure out where you are in relation to where God wants you

to be in order to return to that place where God has His plan,

His purpose, and His will for your life.

The question this morning is really twofold #1 have you

believed by faith? There's a question I want you to

answer. And then #2 having believed by

faith, if you have, are you living by faith?

Have you believed by faith? And are you living by faith?

Listen to Genesis chapter 15, beginning in verse one.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

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

if we just stop right here and answer what?

What is after these things? What are these things?

Well, these things are a little thing that Abram plus 318 men

did against an army of a coalition of four kings, if you

remember, from the east that had swept through the Jordan Valley,

reclaiming the land and the people that had rebelled against

them. That included the abduction of

Lot, his nephew, and his entire family.

So Abram plus his 318 against an army of no doubt thousands

miraculously as an underdog in a stunning should never happened

by night raid and all the next day doesn't just say they

slipped in and slept out, it's and slipped out.

It means that they went in and wiped them out and then

slaughtered them all the next day.

Why? Because Abram was with God and

God was all Abram needed. You remember us saying that last

week Lot was away from the will of God and about lost

everything. But Abram is with God and God is

with Abraham, and God is all that he needs.

So after these things, and of course these things include the

fact that Abram, if you remember, took all those things

that he had and gave a tent. He gave a tithe to the king and

priest of Salem by the name of Melchizedek in an honor, in an

act of honor and blessing to the Lord who had provided him the

victory. And then perhaps even more

stunning is he takes the 90% that's left and gives it back to

the wicked king of Sodom, basically saying, listen, I'm

not going to let any wicked man take any credit for what God

could only provide me. Take all your stuff back.

That's not what I'm after. It's not what I want.

I'm not after earthly riches. I'm after heaven's blessing and

God's promises. So it's after these things.

And then it says the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

Fear not Abram, I am your shield.

Your reward shall be very great. Abram with 318 men versus

thousands should have been afraid y'all.

But he wasn't. Abram and his men saw were

reward and he could have sought reward from an earthly reward

standpoint from a wicked king. But he didn't.

And as a result God speaks to confirm his promises to Abram.

And it sounds like this, Abram, keep living fearlessly.

Abram, as I promised you, I will protect you.

I am your shield as you succeeded with as a group of 319

against thousands. Because Abram, I'm your

deliverer. I am your protector.

The promise, the reward that I promised you is infinitely

greater than any earthly reward you gave back to that wicked

king. So Abram, the word that Abram

hears here from God is a word also that God wants us to hear,

that He has spoken to us as well as Christ followers.

As the New Testament makes clear, and this is the first

thing in your notes I want you to see, the Christian life is a

call to live fearlessly. The Christian life is a call to

live fearlessly. God is looking for men and

women, boys and girls, who will fear not.

In fact, the Bible makes it very clear.

Second Timothy chapter one, verse 7.

The Bible says I God says I've not given you a spirit of but of

power and of love and a sound mind.

I've not, I've not verified this, but scholars say that fear

not or do not fears written approximately 365 times in the

Bible, once for every single day.

I've heard one person say, well, they counted 366, including once

for leap year. I don't know.

I haven't done that myself, but I just know it's close enough

that that's got to that, that that's no accident that God's

looking for people who will fear him and fear nothing else.

For that is the secret of living fearlessly when you've been

conquered by a greater fear, which is a fear of God.

That's the secret to living fearlessly in the face of

anything else. Can I ask you this morning, what

do you fear? Do you find yourself living with

worry or facing anxiety? Is there something that you

dread? What do you fear you see?

To fear God is to see God for who he really is.

It is to see him as holy and completely trustworthy.

It is to see him as the one who is all powerful and in total

control. And if he's if he's in control

and he's good, which he is, he can be trusted.

We fear, are called to fear God alone, which allows us to live

without fear in the face of anything else.

Y'all as believers, let me just remind you, we can live

fearlessly because God has promised to be our shield.

Jesus remember, is our shield. Don't forget against the wages

of our sin, which we deserve, which is death, and yet Jesus is

our shield. Jesus is our shield against

death. Death for the believer is just

now a doorway into life forever in the presence of God.

Something that the sting has been taken out of, something

that we no longer need to walk in fear of because the best is

yet to come. All the Gods promises forever

all come as a result of not just living in this life, but the

life to come that yet death is just a doorway into to fear God,

to fear him. We know that Jesus is our

protector, our deliverer and strength, the one through whom

we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength,

who strengthens me. As Paul writes y'all, we can

live fearlessly, not just because Jesus, God has promised

to be our shield, but we can live fearlessly because God has

promised to be our reward. God tells Abraham you notice his

reward will be very great. Did you know that Jesus promises

you as a believer the same thing?

That your reward will be very great?

You say Kyle, what kind of great reward has Jesus promised me #1A

Kingdom that is coming that will last forever?

Jesus has promised you to be with him, a Co heir of all

things. Jesus has promised and invited

you into sharing in his glory forever.

Jesus has promised you a personal relationship with him.

The presence of God dwelling within you now is a down payment

of what's to come, heaven and participation in God forever.

The call to follow Jesus is a call to live fearlessly.

Could you honestly say, would you honestly say right now, just

within your heart and mind, am I living fearlessly because my

greatest fear is fearing God alone?

Or do you have any fears that compete with your fear of God?

And to be honest, when our fears compete with our fear of God,

it's because our view of God is too small.

Our view of our fears are too big and our God is too small,

which is why we daily go back to get in the word of God to see

God for who He truly is so that we fear Him alone.

And seeing God for who he truly is shrinks all our other fears

as we fear Him alone and nothing else.

Are you living fearlessly because of the fear of God?

Abram hearing confirmation of the promises of God, you got to

think. I just want you to kind of think

about this for a moment. We haven't read the next few

verses, but you got to think, just look back at verse one.

Think about what Abraham's just heard, and he's just heard the

renewed promises of God. He's just heard God say, Abram,

I'm your shield. Can you imagine if God appeared

to you and you heard this audibly from God?

Can you imagine how you might be feeling?

I'm your deliverer, I'm your protector.

Your awards going to be very great.

I heard one preacher say, surely, Abram, this is the time

he goes and gets his guitar and a sheet of paper, starts writing

worship song lyrics because he's just going to sit the rest of

the day and play and sing and worship to God.

He's got to be feeling so good. Is that what Abram does?

Listen to the Bible, verse 2. But Abram said, oh Lord God,

what will you give me? For I continue childless, and

the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus.

And Abram said, behold, you've given me no offspring, and a

member of my household will be my heir.

Abram doesn't worship. What does Abram do?

He whines. Can you imagine hearing what he

just heard from God and talking back to God like that?

Surely God's going to kind of throw down a little bit.

Surely God's a little aggravated.

Surely God is going to, you know, maybe hit reset here.

And yet God is so gracious and kind and patient, is he not?

Abram has not totally lost his faith in God, but he's

expressing honestly some doubts. Have you been there before, not

lost your faith, but just quite honestly struggling to believe

the promises of God? Maybe facing some doubts based

on your circumstances or situation or the odds that are

happening in your life? Struggling to hold confidently

to the Lord God? How are you going to give me

anything when you haven't given me the one thing that you've

promised? God?

How are you going to give me any reward when I don't have any

offspring yet, God? How are you going to make your

promises come true when I haven't seen them yet?

God, in case you haven't noticed, I'm still childless.

God, in case you haven't noticed, the lawyer who's done

my will has an employee as my heir right now.

God, what's taking so long? God, I'm trying to hold to your

promises, but I feel like you are holding out on me.

Somebody ever owed you money, said they would pay you, kept

saying they pay you, but never paid you.

Remember how you felt? Maybe in that moment that's how

Abram feels towards God. God, you, you've said this, God,

you've promised this God you, you keep saying this, but I, I

feel like you're holding out on me.

Listen to verse four and five and behold, the word of the Lord

came to him. This man that is Eleazar shall

not be your heir. Your very own son that is

literally one from your own body shall be your heir.

And he brought him outside to do a little show and tell.

And he said, look toward heaven, Abram, and Number the Stars.

If you're able to number them, then he said to him, so shall

your offspring be. God again, is so gracious,

patient and kind with Abram. You would think this might be

where if Abram needed a little discipline, maybe this is where

God was going to give it. And God just patiently pulls up

alongside Abram, says Abram. No, no, a son, as I've promised

is going to come. Let me show you a little

demonstration. Walk outside with me.

I want you to look towards heaven.

And Abraham. If you can number all of those,

then you'll be at a number, all the offspring as a result of my

promise that I'm going to give you.

And again, this is fascinating to think about.

Guess who one of those stars, metaphorically speaking, Guess

who one of those stars would be as an offspring?

Promise to Abraham the bright and the morning star, Jesus

Christ, a son of Abraham, promised all the way back in

Genesis 12 that would be born and be a blessing to all the

nations, all the families of the earth.

Abram, believe me, look at the stars and believe me, trust me

and wait on me #2 you know, the Christian life is not just a

call to live fearlessly, but it's also a call to live

patiently. We don't like to talk about

patience a lot, but the call to follow Christ in walking with

the Lord is an exercise in patience as we hold to the

promises of God, not necessarily realizing all of them in this

life, realizing the best is yet to come.

In fact, we don't think about, we don't talk about, we don't

actually even discuss this a lot, but we realize the very

best, the greatest results of the promises of God are not

actually coming in this life. We're strangers in exiles, not

citizens of this world, but our full reward is coming in the in

the next. Why don't you listen to how the

Bible puts that in Hebrews 11 Speaking of Abram, This is

Isaiah 11:8–10

Chapter 11, verses 8 through 10. Because you see, believing God

includes waiting on God. It says in these verses, by

faith Abram obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that

he was to receive as an inheritance and he went out not

knowing where he he was going by faith.

He went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land,

living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the

same promise. And watch this for he was here's

the patient part. He was looking forward.

He didn't have it all right then.

He was holding to the promises. He was living patient.

He was looking forward to the city that has foundations.

That's that Kingdom that we've been promised as followers of

Christ, whose designer and builder is God.

That's that place with God forever.

That's that all things made right.

That's that finally and fully in God's presence, reality he was

looking forward to. He didn't watch.

He didn't experience in this life knowing it was coming in

the next verse 13 is even more explicit.

These, including Abram, all died in faith.

Did you realize in a very real way, we as believers should

Christ tarry and not return before we take our last breath?

There's very much still for us a taking of our last breath that

must be done in and by faith, right?

That God's promises are true, that the sting of death has been

removed. That to be absent from the body

is to be present with the the Lord.

That when we see Him in that moment, face to face, we shall

be changed and be like Him. These all died in faith, not

having received the things promised, but having seen them

and greeted them from afar. That is, knowing them, realized

them, believing them, and having acknowledged that they were

strangers and exiles on the earth.

Y'all, Abraham's entire life in one way was an exercise in

patience. It was an exercise in hearing

and believing the promises of God, realizing that on this side

of heaven, not all of them he would see the full fruition of.

That is an integral, required, critical part of the Christian

life. It is living fearlessly.

It's also choosing by faith to live patiently in the promises

of God. What does Abraham do?

Well, here's where we get to verse 6.

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

what? This verse is what you might

call a North Star of Scripture. It's what I would compare to a

Mount Everest of the mountain peaks of the Bible.

Why is that? Because y'all, it reveals the

essence of salvation. Here we have a verse that

clarifies the message of the Bible.

It is the answer to the question, how could a human

being possibly be made right with God?

It says Abraham heard the word of God, specifically the

promises of God, and did what believe.

That means he trusted God to be true.

It means he placed his confidence in God's word.

He accepted the promises of God as good as done.

He put his faith in God. That is, God spoke, Abram

believed and God did what the Bible says.

He counted it to him as right. To what does that mean?

He counted it to him as righteousness.

It means he credited a Sinner with undeserved righteousness.

It means that he granted Abram a righteous or right standing with

him. He imputed as a word that

scholars will use, which means he transferred A righteousness

that belonged only to God and gave it to Abraham, gave it to

him as his He considered an unrighteous man righteous in his

sight. Was it because Abram earned it

or deserved it? No.

Was it because Abram worked for it?

Was it because Abram obeyed the law?

No, the law hadn't been given yet.

Was it because Abram was circumcised, baptized, observed

the Lord's Supper, or joined his local church?

No. No.

Was it because Abram believed God by faith?

Yes, Abram was made right with God because he believed God.

Here we learned the message of the Bible.

So clearly, here's where we're at the top of the spruce tree,

and we see how all these things come together to make sense from

the old covenant to the new, and Jesus as the answer, right?

And we see that a right relationship with God requires

the righteousness of God. And we see that the

righteousness of God is only acquired by faith, which means a

right relationship with God only comes by faith.

Here we see the landscape. Here we see the message of the

Bible. Here we see why Jesus had to

come. Here we see where we stand on

our own, separated from God and our sin and our unrighteousness.

Unless somebody steps in and provides for us what is not

natively ours, as we say oftentimes, what is the world's

greatest problem? Lostness.

Cat, you should have said it loud and proud.

All right, I heard you. I heard you whisper.

It's lostness. It's when people are not in a

right relationship with who? With God.

That's the essence, that's the core, that's the source of all

our problems on the planet, is when men and women, boys and

girls are not in a right relationship with God.

We call it lostness. And without a right relationship

with God, we have no righteousness of our own.

This is our problem. Separated from God and our

unrighteousness, we stand in an wrong relationship with God.

We're lost. This is why John Newton wrote so

eloquently in a song you know so well in 1779.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I've I've been brought into a right relationship with God by

fate, and I've received the righteousness of Christ.

That's what John Newton is expressing.

I once lived one way. It was a horrible way.

Jesus changed my way of living. Why?

Because John Newton earned it. Because John Newton worked for

it. Because John Newton started

doing what was right, or because John Newton believed the word of

God and like Abram, it was counted to him as righteousness.

The question of all questions is how could unrighteous, sinful

human beings ever be made right with God?

But I can, before I answered the question, can I be honest with

you and just say the world really doesn't even believe?

That question needs to be asked, which is part of the blindness.

When people are lost, often they don't know they're lost.

You ask the world and they don't believe that they're naturally

or natively unrighteous before a righteous God.

You ask the world or you, you go out and ask the culture and

you're going to hear this lie in so many different ways or terms.

We're, we're, you know, we're, we're fundamentally good and we,

we got a few issues here and there, but you know, deep down,

deep down, we're, we're righteous.

You just give us the right circumstances or the right

situation, we'll do the right thing.

Is that how you've acted in your life?

If you, if you searched your heart and found native natural

righteousness? Let me ask you to examine your

family. How hard is it to find

brokenness somewhere? Let me ask you to walk in at

local schools, in any community, and guess what you'll find

there? Security to prevent the greatest

of what tragedies you want to you want to you want to examine

the paperwork and the doings of any institution on the planet,

including those of faith, you're going to find them corruption

free. You look around the the globe,

you find find freedom and righteousness and liberty

reigning. Who do we think we're fooling?

Certainly not God, none but ourselves, right?

And yet the world doesn't even realize the right question to

ask is how can we be made righteous before God because

we're unrighteous. And yet some have been honest at

some points. I've told you this, but the

famous atheist Woody Allen said this, Woody, if there was a God,

what would you want him to say to you?

To which he responded, I don't want him to say to me, you are

Mr. Allen forgiven. Why?

Because he knew there was a God and that God was righteous.

He was in trouble, we are. This is why God sent His one and

only Son, the way, the truth, and the life.

What has Jesus done for you so that you could be made right

with God? He lived sinlessly in your

place. He died sacrificially in your

place. He rose victoriously from the

grave in your place. This is what Jesus has done.

The Bible doesn't say all who live a good life will be saved.

It doesn't say all who contribute to the good of

society will be saved. The Bible says all who call on

the name of the Lord will be saved because all have sinned

and fallen short of the glory of God.

Can I ask you, has there been a moment in your life and you got

to top of that spruce tree and you looked at the landscape of

your life and the Bible and who God is, and you realize I'm

separated from him. I'm unrighteous on my own and by

faith. You called out to Jesus to save

you, and your life was reoriented to living rightly

with God by faith #3 the Christian life.

The Christian life is a call to live by faith.

Some people ask the question, how were they saved in the Old

Testament? The same way they're saved in

the New Testament by faith. By faith in the old looking

forward to the cross in the New Testament, by faith, looking

back to the cross, we're only saved mankind, man or woman, boy

or girl, is only made right with God by by faith.

The Bible says if you have never called out in faith to Jesus

Christ, it says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved. That is, you'll be counted

righteous, you'll be made right with God, you will be found.

Have you been saved by faith was my first question.

The second question is, having been saved, are you living?

Are you walking by faith? Or maybe have you kind of gotten

off track a little bit like Abraham was in verse 2 and 3,

where he had heard the promises of God.

He knew the promises of God, but quite honestly, he started

living by sight. God, I hadn't seen the promises

of God. God, I'm not seeing them.

God, I've heard them. I'm struggling to believe them

because I'm not seeing them. And so often we get down where

the Land's flat and the trees are thick and the snow is deep

and it's super cold, and we kind of start walking by sight rather

than faith. We get disoriented and maybe

start falling into fear or refusing to live patiently and

wait on God. We get ahead of God or get

behind God and we lose the what we started with.

We lose the reality that our lives as Christians, not that

just begin by faith, but we're called to live out our salvation

by faith. And this is what Abram was

reminded of here and what we see here as how God caused us to

rightly relate with him. Y'all, the call of God can only

be answered by faith. The call of God can only be

answered by faith. One of the ways that we remember

this truth is by observing the Lord's Supper.

I want you to think about the Supper in this way.

Coming to the table. We're coming to something that

we could not provide for ourselves.

We're coming to something that we could not prepare for

ourselves. I'm in the throes of with my

wife of raising a 1311 and 9 year old.

I'm not sure how many. Lauren does the lion's share of

it, but there's just some days where you're like, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure how many more dishes I'm going to wash in my

life or, you know, when the meals are going to stop or when.

I mean, you know, the grocery shopping, the meals that I mean,

just the cycle of life. He just keeps coming, right?

You're constantly preparing. You're constantly providing.

The meal of the Lord's Supper is one that when we participate in,

the right way to approach it is to realize the only way you can

participate is by completely receiving, by faith that your

salvation was not something you work for, was not something that

you could earn or that you could deserve.

That the righteousness that you have as a child of God is not

native to you. It's not natural to you.

It's actually alien to you. It's what Jesus has provided you

the day you called by faith in him to save you.

As you prepare to partake, John and praised him are going to

come out and I want to invite you to just bow your head and

close your eyes and I want you to consider for a few moments

what Jesus has done for you. You know, when we sit down at a

table to partake in a meal, one of the things we do, and I pray

that you do, no matter whether you're in public or private, is

you tell you, tell the Lord thank you for what you're about

to partake of. How could we come to the Lord's

table? One we could have never

provided, one we could have never prepared without saying

thanks. So I, I want to invite you just

to prepare your own heart for a moment, whether that's saying

thank you to the Lord silently or whether you're bold enough to

say it out loud verbally. In fact, I just want to give us

a moment or two here for several of you to say thank you out loud

for what God has done for us through his Son, Jesus Christ.

If you're willing to pray out loud, I want you to do it.

Just say a sentence prayer of thanks that I'm going to, I'm

going to close this after you pray, and our deacons will then

serve us and we will participate together.

Somebody start us saying thanks for the meal that only God could

provide. Father, thank you is

insufficient. God, it's all by your grace and

your power, your love and your incredible provision that you

sent your one and only Son as whosoever would believe in him

should not perish but have everlasting life.

Remind us, Father, the depth, the length, the breadth that you

went to to show us your love by sending your one and only Son.

Thank you for his broken body. Thank you for his shed blood as

the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin

of the world. Father, I pray that you allow us

as we participate to reminded that what starts by faith in

You. You call us to everyday walk out

by faith in you in Jesus name I pray.

Amen. Deacons, if you would now

position yourself to service this morning, invite you to

participate. If you're a follower of Jesus,

you've called on Jesus to save you.

It's OK to let the elements pass if they need to.

If you're not in the right state of heart or mind.

The Bible says not to partake in an unworthy manner.

And if it's a day that you're not ready to do so, then you

just pass the plate to the person next to you.

But if you've chosen to trust Christ by fate, I invite you to

participate. And I'll return to lead us in

participating in just a moment.