Believing The Impossible

The last few years, uh I feel like God has really been changing me.

I grew up in a church and I was in a church family, and like I always knew Jesus, and I actually was I guess what you'd what I would call myself like, you know, following him.

But to come here, like I've gotten to know him so much better and to understand uh the Bible so much better, and I just like in every way I feel it changing me at work, at home, in my marriage, in my relationships.

He's gotten so much bigger in my heart.

This church has impacted the people around me.

I think by making me more a more visible Christian.

Um and that makes them want to be a church too.

We we talk about church, we talk about Jesus more, we talk about our faith more and how we're living that out.

FBC matters to me because um it really helped me center my life on Jesus.

I I always had him with me, but I feel like he's a bigger, more um a bigger part.

Like he's right at the front and center now, and I I'm really excited to share that with others, and I don't know, just makes me really happy.

I just envision people coming to worship.

I mean, I see all the excitement that we have and and the feelings that we get on Sunday mornings, and then like to have all new people experiencing that.

That's really cool to me because I always want to tell people, I do tell people all the time they should come to FBC, but to like have a whole new place in a community where all these new people are coming and experiencing that life-changing stuff is so exciting.

Well, have you ever been in a situation where you were completely in over your head?

I have.

Clearly, you haven't, because all of you, none of you shook your head, yes, but that's fine.

Whatever.

Uh many years ago, I was hired to do a job that I was severely underqualified for.

And no, it's not this job, I know what you're thinking.

Um, it's a different job, and let me set the scene.

Uh, as many of you know, I'm not exactly the most experienced person when it comes to the skilled trades.

Uh, I am somebody who probably belongs behind a desk somewhere, right?

I've got soft hands, I know.

But um, when I was younger, I was hired to work at a place that was a plastics factory, small operation.

My job was really unique.

I had to climb up on this big machine, and this machine uh had these uh big steel molds.

I would take off the lid, fill it with plastic powder, uh, put back on the lid, and then I would cycle through the machine and it would heat up and it would make these plastic parts.

We actually specialized in making non-pressurized pipe plugs for construction sites, if you're interested at all.

Kind of random.

But that's what I did, and I did it for maybe nine, ten months.

It was a small operation.

In fact, it was so small that there were times where I was the only person on site at the entire factory running the machine, which meant not only was I responsible for making sure that I was running the machine, but if the machine broke down, I was also apparently responsible to try to fix it.

Therein lies the problem.

I had no clue what I was doing with this machine.

So, for example, one time I remember there was like some metal components that had broken off during one of the cycles.

And I called my boss and let him know that that it had broken.

I couldn't run the machine.

And he said, Okay, well, we got some equipment there.

I need you to weld the metal back together, weld the machine back together.

I had never welded in my life, right?

So there I am attempting to weld the machine back together.

My welds were awful, it was a completely failured experience, and so it didn't work.

I gave it a shot, it didn't work.

Another time I remember there was something that was malfunctioning, and I called the boss and he said, Yeah, there's probably a wiring issue.

Why don't you go in there and just kind of check the wiring and see if you can figure out what the problem is?

Now, let me qualify all this by saying the machine that we were running was from Europe.

I think it was from Italy, so all the uh manuals were in Italian.

So not only am I not an electrician, I also don't speak Italian.

So I was kind of left to just try to figure out on my own.

So there's a big electrical panel next to the machine, wires going everywhere, and I just started like unplugging wires and putting them in different places, which is a terrible thing to do with electricity.

But either way, I lo and behold, I did not fix the machine.

However, my boss kept giving me more and more things to do.

He kept trusting me to fix things that I could not fix.

So eventually it came to a point where I had to go to him.

I said, Hey, I now know how to run this machine.

I do a pretty good job of that part, but when it breaks down, you're asking me to fix it, and I'm not capable of doing that.

Right?

He's asking me to do something I can't.

My boss was putting his confidence in someone who couldn't deliver, and that someone was me.

Now, why do I share this story of my miserable failures with you?

Well, I share this because there's an important lesson here.

You see, trust is a good thing.

We all need to function in life with trust.

In fact, the fact that you're here today means that you trusted that your vehicle would get you here safely.

You also trusted that the other drivers on the other side of the road and the other lane would stay in their lane and not cross over and and hit you.

We have to live with a level of trust.

That's just the way the world is.

But trust is only beneficial if the object of our trust is trustworthy.

And not everyone and not everything is worthy of our trust, right?

We've experienced that before, haven't we?

There have been situations in life where maybe you've trusted in people who've just let you down.

Maybe you've had situations before where someone made promises to you and they didn't deliver on those promises.

Perhaps in your life you put confidence in someone or something that ultimately disappointed you.

And in experiences like that, when those things happen, we tend to be a little more cautious and perhaps even skeptical because when we trust in someone or something, we have to believe that it's going to deliver.

And the truth is, not everyone can.

In fact, this morning, that tension is the tension we feel as we engage in our text in the book of Genesis.

Uh, remember, God, if you were with us last week, he made good and precious promises to Abraham.

Uh, he made amazing promises to Abram.

He he promised all sorts of things, and from a human perspective, it seemed as if these promises were impossible.

And as time passed, Abram found himself wrestling with this very important question that I just asked.

If I'm going to trust God, how do I know?

How do I know that God is going to deliver?

That's the question.

And maybe this morning, if you're honest with yourself, you're in a situation or you have circumstances swirling around your life, and maybe you're faced with the very same question.

You're a follower of Jesus, you're trusting in God, but you're struggling because your circumstances, your situation, you don't see a path forward.

And maybe you're asking yourself that very same question.

I'm gonna trust in God, but if I trust him, how do I know he's gonna deliver?

Well, if that's the question you're looking at this morning, then Lord willing, we're gonna find it as we open up the pages of Scripture.

So I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter 15 this morning.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 15 is where we're at.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

If you are a guest with us today, if you're joining us for the first time, welcome.

We're glad that you're here.

Thankful that we have new people coming to FBC.

We open our Bibles every single Sunday at Frankmuth Bible Church.

That's why we're called Frankworth Bible Church.

So if you brought a Bible, great.

If you didn't, we got you covered.

There's a Bible in front of you.

And uh if you don't own a Bible, take that home.

And if you're somebody who's looking for Genesis, it's really easy this week.

It is uh, in fact, this whole series, it's the first book of your Bible.

Genesis 15 is where you're at.

As you're turning there, we're continuing a series we began last week.

The series is called Multiply, where we're walking through the life of Abraham together.

This is an important series for us because not only are we looking at the journey that Abraham took, but as a church, we're also considering our own journey of faith as we take steps toward what God has for us next as a church.

And as many of you know, and we talked about in the host moment, over the past several years, uh we have seen God moving and working in incredible ways here.

In fact, this map here kind of represents uh some of the people who every Sunday morning would come to FBC, all these little dots all over, if you can see that.

Uh, that's a little bit of a composite of who comes to FBC.

We are thankful that Frankemuth Bible Church is not just a church for Frankemuth, but for the surrounding communities.

It's awesome.

Uh, we also believe, though, that many of the people who are driving long distances to come to FBC are coming because they're faithful, mature Christians who want to find a church that they can jump into, get connected in, and grow in their faith for themselves and their families.

However, oftentimes people drive past their unbelieving friends and neighbors to come here.

And many people who are unbelievers, who are exploring faith, they might not take that drive.

They may look for the church closest church to them, but perhaps if that church is declining or dying, uh, this is an opportunity for us to really explore what would it look like to mobilize our church, to reach their community for Christ, by establishing campuses comprised of some of the communities that are driving here, so that way we can expand the reach of the gospel even further and reach more people with the good news of Jesus.

And so that's been what this initiative is all about.

We're taking a series as we're walking through this multiply series.

We're going to be ending this series with a generosity initiative.

This generosity initiative is based on a two-year opportunity for people over and above to make pledges, to give, to try to fund and fuel this effort to launch in new locations.

Um, that coincides with us eliminating our debt to be able to accomplish this goal.

But if you're with us last week, you know that we had a brochure, a multiply brochure, that we have all the details that outline this.

We handed it out at the end of the service.

If you were not with us, or if you don't have that brochure, on the way out today, at all the doors and exits, you should have that available.

And you can read through that and see everything we're doing.

We kind of lay out the whole plan for you right there.

Uh but for today, with that, I want to pick back up.

We're gonna be in the text today.

We're still looking at the text.

That's where I want to lean into.

And I want to remind you of where we were when we started our journey last week.

So you remember, if you were here, God called this guy named Abram.

Later on, his name gets changed to Abraham.

So you might hear me kind of oscillating back and forth between Abraham and Abram.

At this point in the journey, his name is Abram.

God called him from a place called Ur of the Chaldeans.

And God called Abram out of a life of idolatry, mind you.

Called Abram to go to a land that God would show him, a place that Abram had never been to before, to leave behind everything familiar and to go.

And along with this calling to go, God made a series of good and precious promises.

God told Abram that he was going to make him into a great nation.

God told him that he was going to bless him, that he was gonna make his name great, and that through Abram all the families of the earth would be blessed.

That was chapter 12.

Uh last week we didn't hit it, but later on in chapter 12, God gets even more explicit with these promises, and he says, The land I'm taking you, the land of Canaan, is going to be your possession.

Your descendants are going to inhabit that land of Canaan.

Now, as God makes these promises, which are not minor, right?

They're major promises.

There are some obstacles that are standing in the way of these promises being fulfilled.

Let's call some of them out.

First of all, God says, Abram, I'm going to make you into a great nation.

You're going to have descendants.

The problem?

Abram and his wife are unable to have children.

We're told very clearly that Sarai, his wife, is barren.

She cannot have kids.

And they're now at an age where really that the possibility of having kids, like it's just not realistic.

And so God makes a promise that's just humanly speaking isn't possible.

Then God also says, hey, you're going to inhabit the land of Canaan.

Another problem stands in the way of that.

The problem is that there are people who already live there.

How is Abram and his descendants going to inhabit a land where people already live and inhabit?

And so those are significant barriers to make matters worse.

God made these promises in chapter 12.

And now since that time, some considerable time has passed.

We don't know exactly how much, but we do know that Abram's trusting God.

He's trusting God enough to move, but he's still waiting for God to deliver on all his promises.

And that brings us back to the question: uh, if we trust God, how do we know God's going to deliver?

That's really the question we see Abram kind of wrestle with in our text today.

So, with that, let's jump in.

We're in chapter 15 today.

The first section I want to consider with you, number one, it's what we're calling God's provision.

God's provision.

So notice as we dive in how the text begins in verse one by saying these words.

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.

Now, as we jump in here, I want you to notice the first two words that God says to Abram.

He begins by saying, fear not.

Let me remind you that in the Bible, this is perhaps the most repeated command that we find in Scripture.

This imperative to fear not.

We hear God say this numerous times.

We hear the angel say this.

The command to fear not is repeated over and over and over again.

And I would suggest to you that perhaps it's repeated over and over and over again, because we need to hear it over and over and over again.

Maybe in your own life, in your own situation, in your own circumstances, the things that are swirling around you, there are things that are gripping you with fear because right now you're not in control of certain outcomes.

Can I remind you that we have a sovereign God who is all powerful?

If we believe in the sovereignty of God and the fact that God can do anything, then we have confidence that in the things that we can't control we can release them to the God who's in control of all things.

So that reminder, fear not, that God gives to Abram, perhaps that's a reminder you need to hear today, fear not.

God begins by reassuring Abram that he is in control.

Fear not, he says, and then he goes on to say something else, right?

What's the context of Abram's fear?

Well, notice what he says.

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

Now, why would God tell Abram, I'm your shield, and your reward will be great?

Why would God say this?

Well, let me give you a little hint.

When we study our Bibles, we need to be good Bible detectives.

So this morning, let's go ahead and put on our little sleuthing hats and we'll dig into the scriptures for a minute.

As we investigate God's word, one of the things I want to remind you is that originally the chapter divisions and verse divisions that we find in the text, those are not original.

This was a scroll.

And so we've just, for reference sake, added chapters and verses.

And so sometimes when we add chapters, we tend to compartmentalize sections of the Bible and read them in isolation.

This was all one continuing story.

So let me start there.

Also, when we study our Bible and there's something we don't fully understand, and we're scratching our heads, good detectives say, Well, what's happening in this passage?

What's happening in the context?

And what's going on before and after?

And you'll notice specifically to this verse, this section, we have a call out very clearly.

Notice what it says in the very beginning.

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

After these things, that opening phrase is important for us because we're reading chapter 15, and so it seems to me that what this is in reference to is connected to what happened in the previous chapter.

Now, week one, we looked at chapter 12.

Today we're at chapter 15, which means we've skipped some stuff.

So if I can this morning, I just want to take a moment to glean a little bit from what happened immediately before this passage, because I think it's going to help us understand our verse.

So in chapter 14, we see some pretty interesting things happen.

But what happens is Abram has already arrived in Canaan.

So he arrived at that destination.

He happened to travel with his nephew, a guy named Lot.

He and Lot had a bunch of animals, and so what happened was space was kind of a challenge for them.

So they needed to separate.

They couldn't settle in the same location because they needed a bunch of land.

And so Abram went one way, Lot went another way.

Lot went to an area that's known as Sodom.

Now, that area, that region, that city, uh was a Canaanite city, and so Lot settled there.

Well, sometime after he settled there, there was a group of kings from the east, from the region of Mesopotamia, who launched a military campaign to invade the cities of the region of Canaan.

And so in the region of Canaan, where Abram and Lot settled, there were five local kings who rose up and ended up resisting this coalition of four kings from the east, and there was a battle that ensued.

And the aftermath of this battle, the city of Sodom was defeated, and consequentially, because Lot was there, that meant that Lot was taken captive by these invading kings.

He, along with all his family and all his possessions.

Now, when Abram heard that his nephew Lot was cross was caught in the crosshairs, when he heard what happened, Abram actually ended up rising up to action.

What he did was very unique.

He gathered 318 trained men from his own household and he went to go after those invading armies.

Now, what's interesting is we don't know all the details.

It makes most sense that Abram already had quite a sizable household when he left Ur, and he left with a bunch of people who were connected to him.

It's also probably likely, very likely, I would say, that along that long, difficult journey to get to the land of Canaan, that he acquired more and more people who joined his household.

That would include distant relatives, it would include uh things like servants.

We don't know exactly.

All we know is that these 318 men were people who were trained.

They weren't his biological children, but they were born in this household, and they were trained for situations like this.

And so Abram mobilized these men, he went out to pursue these invading kings, and guess what?

He was victorious.

Abram won the victory.

Uh, he beat these these kings, and he rescued Lot and he rescued all the possessions that were taken, and he had this whole plunder and spoil he had taken.

Now, you need to stop for a second and think about what that means.

Imagine this.

You're Abram, you've got a sizable household, you you now move into a new territory, and immediately you're summoned into a battle where you defeat some pretty significant enemies.

You're victorious, but you're you're the new guy on the block, and now you have a target on your back, right?

I mean, Abram and his household were now vulnerable because they just defeated a bunch of kings.

Those kings could go back to the east and then amass more people and then return, and maybe they want revenge on Abram.

Who knows?

And so the reality is the text doesn't tell us that Abram's afraid of this, but considering what just happened in chapter 14 and what we see at the beginning of chapter 15, it is reasonable to assume that Abram has some fear of retaliation.

And notice what the Lord says directly to him: Fear not, Abram, I am your shield.

Translation, Abram, don't worry, I got your back.

Anybody comes after you, they gotta mess with me.

And remember, that's an extension of the promise that God already made.

I'll bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I'll curse.

God is saying to Abram, Abram, don't be afraid, I'll protect you.

I'm providing provision in this area to protect you.

So don't miss what's happening here.

God is promising to protect Abram.

That's part of this.

But there's more.

If we go back to the end of chapter 14, something else significant happens.

After Abram returns from battle, he goes and has this encounter with a man named Melchizedek, the king of Salem.

Now I'm gonna be honest with you.

I am a Bible nerd, okay?

I'm I'm more than a Bible, I'm just a nerd in general.

Uh, you should see the size of my Star Wars action figure collection I have that I amassed when I was far too old.

Just know that.

I'm a nerd in general, but I'm I'm really a Bible nerd.

So we start talking about Melchizedek, and my ears perk up and I get excited because he's one of the coolest, most mysterious, awesome characters in the entire Bible.

And so this morning I am exercising a whole lot of restraint from not just going off on a tangent to talk about this guy who's super cool.

But I want to give you the highlights because it's important for our story.

So Melchizedek is both a king and a priest.

Okay, that's significant.

King and priest, and he's a king of a place called Salem.

Now, the Hebrew word shalom, that's what this is.

It's it's the city of peace.

And interestingly, uh just about everybody believes that Salem was the early version of Jerusalem.

So he's the priest king from Jerusalem.

That should already be triggering all sorts of fun, cool, nerdy things in your head, but I'll leave it.

He's also called the priest of the Most High God.

So he's a worshiper of Yahweh, of the God of Israel.

And when he Abram, he blesses him.

That's even more significant because when someone blessed another person, that signified that they were greater than the person they blessed.

You're always blessed by a greater person than yourself.

So this guy is greater than Abraham, which is amazing.

He blesses Abram, and then uh something amazing happens.

He praises him for the victory.

Abram does something interesting next.

He gives Melchizedek a tenth of the spoils that he just recovered from battle.

Now, this is significant because this is the first recorded example in the Bible of a tithe being given.

Now, some of you grew up in a church background where you heard about tithing.

The word tithing simply means like a tithe is a tenth.

So some of you grew up in a background where you were kind of felt like we were obligated to give one-tenth of our income to the church.

Tithing is something that's biblical.

We see it in the old covenant.

In fact, under the Mosaic Law, which came hundreds of years later after Abram does this, in the Mosaic Law, the Israelites were commanded to tithe.

In fact, they were commanded to tithe to not just tithe once, but multiple times.

So that's a whole separate thing.

I'll leave it.

But Abram does this hundreds of years before.

Now, what's interesting here is there's no indication that God commanded Abram to give a specific amount here.

Instead, his generosity appears to be this voluntary expression of worship, acknowledging that this victory was something that ultimately came from the Lord.

I want to take a moment here now, though, because I'm talking about tithing for a second, because this is the first example in the Bible.

Can I talk just a moment about generosity in the church today?

I want to make myself really clear.

I want to begin by saying that some people maybe have the conviction that we should give one-tenth of our income toward the work of the Lord.

If you have that conviction, honor that conviction as unto the Lord.

Let me just say that.

We don't want to violate the law of our own conscience, and our convictions are important.

Romans 14 and 15 talk all about that.

I will tell you from my perspective, I do believe that the tithe was baked into the old covenant.

What I mean by that is that was a law that was given to the nation of Israel under the old covenant, and Jesus came, and what did he say?

I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Jesus fulfills the law of Moses, and so that law, I do not believe, is now binding for followers of Jesus today.

I'm not under the old law, I'm under grace, I'm under Christ.

The law has come to its consummated end in Jesus.

So I do not think, as a rule, we have to give exactly 10% of our income to the church.

I don't hold to that view.

However, let me clarify: if you know anything about what Jesus says about the law and you read the Sermon on the Mount and you've heard it said, but I say Jesus often clarifies and reinterprets the spirit of the law, and the spirit of the law is very clear that Christians are people who give.

We just are.

That's what we do.

That's what the church has always done.

So giving is part of what it means to follow Jesus.

That's very clear.

But see, the guidance we're given in the new covenant is that the way that we give, it's dictated by the posture of our heart.

So let me be clear about this.

I believe in God math.

God takes what's given and he multiplies it.

He has the kettle on a thousand hills, he uses it for however he wills, and God can do anything.

And so what really matters is not the exact amount that you're doing the 10% in my conviction.

What really matters is the posture of your heart as you give.

There should be the right posture of the heart.

And the New Testament really unpacks that.

There are four, I think, significant things about the posture of our heart as we give.

And so I want to unpack these for a moment.

First of all, let me just walk through the list and then I'll break them down one by one.

We're to give in ways that are generous, sacrificial, free, and cheerful.

So let's start with the first one.

Generous.

This is contextual.

What's generous to you might not be generous to me, or vice versa.

We all have different resources, we all have different means.

This is contextualized.

And so that really means that for some people, right, generous is under 10% because their resources and means would say that, yeah, under 10%, like whatever they can give, if that's generous for you, wonderful.

There are other people who have significant resources and means, and maybe 10% is far too little.

Generous is the point.

We should have a generous uh generosity in our heart as we give, and so we're to give generously.

Second, we're to give sacrificially.

Think about how God gave to us.

He gave his son, Jesus, who sacrificed for us.

The gift of Jesus was costly.

As followers of Christ, when we give, it should cost us.

There's a sacrificial component to this.

That's why the widow's might was so significant.

Jesus said, Hey, she gave more than everybody else, and she only gave a little bit, because it was a sacrifice, and God could multiply it.

So we're to give generously, sacrificially, we're also to give freely.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul makes this very clear.

God did not withhold his son and cling to him.

No, he freely gave his son.

And so when we give, we're to give freely.

If you're feeling pressure, if you're feeling compulsion, if you feel like Pastor Joe's up here twisting my arm to give, I am not.

In fact, I don't want you to give if your arm is being twisted.

The posture of the heart is what matters.

So the way you give is free.

If you're feeling pressured, do not give.

Very clearly, the Bible explains this.

It's all about the heart.

Finally, it's cheerful.

So the way in which we give should come from a cheerful heart.

God loves a cheerful giver.

He uses those glad gifts and he multiplies them.

So our generosity should flow from a glad heart, not a begrudging spirit.

So what I'm saying with all this is this if you want to give a tenth, that's great.

That's actually a great guide, probably, for most of us in our regular giving.

But as we lead our church toward this multiply campaign, whatever you do, if you look to give over and above and be part of this campaign, I just want to make sure that you're following these principles.

Because this is what we're called to do.

In our giving in general, it's about the heart.

And so if your heart's in the right place, God will use it and he'll do what he will.

But we do not want you to violate any of these principles and give in the wrong kind of way.

What we see here in our text is Abram, I really think, reflected this in his generosity.

But there's something else I don't want you to miss from the text as we lean back into that.

After Abram gives a tithe, the king of Sodom now approaches Abram and he has this little offer.

The king of Sodom comes to him and he makes him offer now.

Now remember, Abram has just risked his life and his household to fight against these invading armies.

And the king of Sodom says in return, okay, hey, give me the people that you got from this plunder that that you rescued.

Give me the people back to my city, but everything else that you just got, Abram, from these invading armies, you can keep.

It's yours.

It's a gift to you.

Now, what's interesting here is he's being offered a financial, a substantial financial reward.

And considering everything he's just risked, we would say, oh, he deserves that.

He's earned that.

But Abram refuses it.

In fact, he says to the king of Sodom, I've sworn an oath to the Lord not to take a single thing.

And the reason Abram has done this is because he doesn't want anyone to say, including the king of Sodom, oh, I'm the one who made Abram rich.

Now, this is interesting, isn't it?

Abram is not looking to leverage his victory as an opportunity to enrich himself.

He recognizes that his blessing ultimately comes from the Lord.

And this is the principle I want you to see here with all this.

Abram isn't being generous because he's expecting he's going to get something in return.

He's being generous because he's trusting in a generous God.

He's generous because he's trusting in a generous God.

His confidence isn't in what he can amass for himself, it's in the God who promised to bless him.

And this is the reason why it says in our chapter to go back to the text for clarity: fear not, Abram, I'm your shield, I'll protect you.

And you just gave up a big reward, but guess what?

Your reward shall be very great.

I'll reward you, I'll bless you.

So Abram's just refused the earthly reward.

God has promised to be his provider.

It's an incredible part of our text here.

And let me just remind you this morning for you.

If God is ultimately your provider of all things, then everything you possess is his anyway.

And so the reality is the things that you possess you can hold with a loose grip and with open hands, trusting in God your provider.

And so that's the first thing we see.

Number one, God's provision in the life of Abram.

As we continue now, number two, we're going to see God's promise.

So we're going to see once again these promises, just as we saw in chapter 12.

We're going to see them again.

The passage continues.

God continues to make these promises and he repeats them.

But notice here what it says, picking up in verses two and three.

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

Right?

This is on the heels of him saying, I'll reward you.

He says, Well, what will you give me?

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

This is probably some guy he picked up along the way who became a prominent member of his household.

Not a son, but someone of the household.

He says, The heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.

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

Now remember back to Genesis 12, God has already said that Abram's gonna have offspring.

And now God tells Abram that his reward will be great.

Abram responds by saying, Well, I'm I'm thankful that my reward is great, but here's the problem: who gets to inherit it when I'm gone?

God, you're gonna bless me.

You're gonna give me all sorts of things, but who's going to receive the inheritance?

You can almost feel Abram's concern here.

God has made promises, but the one thing Abram really needs and wants is the one thing he doesn't have.

It's a son.

As far as Abram can tell, this whole inheritance is going to be given to somebody else, a member of not his family, but his household.

And so naturally, Abram has some questions here.

Notice how God responds to this.

We go on, it says this, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him.

This man, this is Eliezer of Damascus, this guy in his household, shall not be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir.

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

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

So here, God graciously responds to Abram's concerns by reiterating the promise he made in chapter 12.

But this time there's more clarity.

Abram's heir is not going to be just a member of the household.

No, he's going to be a son.

Abram is going to have a child, God promises.

And not only that, he takes him outside and says, Look at the stars.

If you can number them, that's how numerous your descendants will be.

Think about how incredible this is to hear this news if you're Abraham.

He doesn't have a single child, but now God is promising more descendants than he can count.

And so from a human perspective, it seems impossible, but God, He's making Himself abundantly clear.

God is promising for Abram what Abram cannot do for himself.

He promises the impossible.

And then notice the response from Abram with all this.

Instead of doubting God, instead of saying, Well, God, I don't know if you can deliver.

Notice what we see here in the text.

He says this in verse 6.

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

Now, this verse is very significant.

Once again, there's a whole lot I could unpack about this verse.

Theologically, there are so many implications of this text.

I just want to glean a few things.

Abram's righteous standing before God was not based on what he could accomplish for himself, it was based on faith and the promises of God.

Now, this principle of righteousness that comes through faith, this gets brought into the New Testament and for good reason, because the reality is God sent Jesus to this earth to suffer and die for us.

And through the sacrificial death of Jesus and through his victorious resurrection, Christ has accomplished for us what we could never accomplish for ourselves.

He secured our salvation.

Amen.

And the incredible news is this the gospel tells us this that to receive salvation is not something that we have to earn or do for ourselves.

It's given to us as a gracious gift, and that gift is received through faith.

That's incredible news.

You see, we can't earn a righteous standing before God, and thankfully we don't have to.

We don't have to because Jesus has done the work for us.

And when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, his righteousness is credited to our account.

We are justified, not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done on our behalf.

I want to just remind some of you here today.

Maybe you're here and you've walked in with this pressure, this feeling like, oh my goodness, I've made a mess of my life.

The things that I've done, if people knew what I've done, I'm in here and I'm just trying my very best to be made acceptable before God.

I just don't know if I can do it.

Can I remind you, you do not have to?

Thus, the gospel tells us you do not have to.

Jesus has already done it.

You cannot be good enough.

Jesus was good enough for you.

In fact, there's this radical exchange that took place in the gospel where your sin that was on your account was placed upon Jesus when he suffered, bled, and died for you.

And now, by grace and through faith, his righteousness that's placed upon your account.

We are credited with righteousness through faith in what Jesus has done for us.

Isn't that good news?

This is the gospel.

This is the doctrine of justification by faith.

In fact, amazingly, in the New Testament, we're called children of Abraham, not because of our lineage, not because of our blood, but through our faith in Jesus.

Just as Abram was with righteousness, by trusting in the promises of God looking ahead, we look back to the fulfillment of those promises in Christ, and we're also justified by faith.

How cool is that?

Just like Abram, we're counted as righteous through faith.

And so now that we've seen number one, God's provision, right?

He provided for Abram, says, Hey, Abram, I'll protect you.

Abram, I'll provide for you, I'll bless you.

Number two, now that we've seen God's promise, God's promise, he will in fact give him a son.

Abram believes it and he's credited with righteousness.

We're going to move to our third and final section.

Before we do, I just want you to note how the text continues.

Uh picking up in verse 7, it says this real quickly.

And he said to him, The Lord's speaking here, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.

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

Now remember, Abram is trusting in the Lord.

He believes in the Lord, right?

But now, as God reaffirms the promise concerning the land, Abram has some questions, and that's understandable.

He's like, God, you're telling me I'm gonna possess the land of Canaan, but there are already people occupying the land.

How will this be?

How will my descendants possibly possess this land?

Translation, God, how are you gonna deliver on this promise?

I believe you, but like, can I have some assurance that you're gonna deliver here?

Well, the way God responds is incredible.

Thirdly, our third and final point is this God's pledge.

God's pledge.

As our passage continues, God does something very interesting.

Now, if you notice in chapter 15, I still have a lot of text to cover, a lot of real estate.

Let's kind of fast track this, all right, this morning.

Uh for the sake of time, let me just summarize some things.

God tells Abram, Abram, bring some animals.

Abram gathers the animals.

Abram does something interesting.

He begins to cut the animals in half, some of them at least.

And he begins to lay them on the ground, uh, one on one side, one on the other side, and Abram begins to wait, and then as he waits, these birds of prey show up and he tries to drive them away.

And eventually it's later and later, the sun begins to set, and we're told that Abram falls into a deep sleep.

God puts him into this deep sleep, and then eventually something amazing happens.

What we see is the presence of the Lord shows up and it begins to pass between the animals, and it's made manifest because that there's a smoking firepot that's there, and there's also a torch, a flaming torch, and that begins to pass between the animals as Abram's sleeping.

I want to just give you a little nerd moment here.

This is reminiscent of what happens in the Exodus generation when God appears in the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud.

Here we have a flaming torch and we have a smoking firepot, and it's the presence of God.

It passes between the animals, and we're told that on that day the Lord makes a covenant with Abram.

Now you might be like, that's super weird.

What's happening?

Abram's sleeping, there's a bunch of dead animals.

God shows up, picks up the stuff, walks between the animals.

This is weird.

What is going on?

Well, to clarify, it's helpful to understand how it worked in the ancient world because often people would make these covenants, these agreements, these promises, that would be accompanied with slaughtering animals.

And we read examples about this in the book of Jeremiah.

The symbolism is significant.

So what would happen is the covenant would be made, someone would make a deal, hey, I promised to do this, you promised to do that, they would kill the animals, and both parties would typically walk between the animals, and it was a way of saying, Hey, if I fail to keep my promises, may I end up like one of these animals?

May I die because I'm giving an oath, I will fulfill these promises.

In other words, it's a solemn pledge to remain faithful to the covenant promises.

But here's what makes Genesis 15 so interesting.

Abram doesn't pass between the animals.

Why?

Homie is incapacitated.

God put him in a deep sleep, just like Adam.

He's asleep.

This is intentional.

He's in a deep sleep, he can't pass between the animals.

You see the significance?

God alone is solemnly binding himself to the promises that he makes to Abram.

Abram is not being asked to guarantee the fulfillment of these promises through his own efforts.

No, God is guaranteeing that he will deliver.

And that's what makes this moment so extraordinary.

The promises that God is making to Abraham, this is now through a covenant.

God is establishing a covenant, and this covenant is ratified through the shedding of blood.

Can I pause for a moment, beloved, and just share with you?

We also have been brought into a covenant, have we not?

And that covenant was ratified through the shedding of blood, not the blood of animals, not the blood of bulls and goats, the blood of Jesus Christ.

He shed his blood to ratify a covenant that we could be brought into and become the people of God.

He alone did that work, not us.

That covenant Jesus Christ secured for us is something we're gonna commemorate and celebrate through communion in just a few moments.

But before we do that, let me just kind of go back into the text for a moment.

The question we've been asking is this question.

If I'm gonna trust God, how do I know God will actually deliver?

Abram was the recipient of good and precious promises from God.

Promises, mind you, from a human exam uh perspective, were impossible.

And yet, God didn't simply repeat the promises over and over and over again.

What he did was something far greater.

He cut a covenant.

He established a covenant, solemnly pledging that he would fulfill his promises.

And beloved, I want you to know that when God makes a promise like this, he will deliver.

He is faithful to his covenant promises.

Guaranteed.

There's a word in Hebrew, it's the word chesed.

It's the faithful, loyal, covenant-keeping God and his love toward us.

And when God is described with his chesed, it's guaranteed that God will fulfill what he said.

And so God has made good and precious promises to us.

It's a guarantee.

Not because our circumstances have changed immediately, not because we cannot necessarily see the path forward and how things are going to work out.

We don't take confidence in those things.

No, we can trust in that because of who God is.

He is the faithful, loyal, covenant-keeping God who makes promises and delivers on all his promises.

And if you ever doubt the precious promises of God, you ever doubt what God is doing in your life or the plans he has for the future, just look back to the cutting of the covenant that took place when Jesus Christ shed his blood, ratifying this new covenant in his blood for you and for me.

Started the message by saying, not everyone can deliver.

I know that.

My former boss knows that as well.

But when it comes to the Lord, we don't need to worry.

We don't need to worry because God never fails.

If he makes a promise, he keeps it.

In fact, our big idea very simply just rests on this.

Our faith rests on God's faithfulness.

Because we have a faithful God, because we have a God who does as he says, our faith can rest squarely on him, and we can rest in it with confidence.

He will deliver on all his promises.

We don't know exactly what the outcome will look like, but we're trusting in the one who makes promises that he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail.

We believe that God is faithful, so we take big, bold steps for the sake of the kingdom.