Presentation 27

Presentation 27

Have you ever noticed how many things in life depend on someone else’s promise? You enter a business practice, get married, take a job, buy a house, all on the basis of someone’s promise. Sadly many of life’s disappointments result from broken human promises. Broken promises can make us cynical and cause us to question the truthfulness of what the next person promises us.Christian men and women are on a faith journey and that involves discovering for themselves the significance and value of God’s promises. It is important to recognise just how unlike human promises, God’s promises are!

With that in mind let’s see what we can learn from Abram.

Introduction

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Abram had just made himself vulnerable. The kings, whom he had defeated in battle plus those including the King of Sodom, whose alliance and wealth he had spurned, were now potential predators. As a result I suspect that the tempter was whispering in his ear, “Abram, you are not only a fool, but a lonely old fool with no support or defence.” Now it is in times of crisis and trial that God graciously draws near to affirm and fill out his covenant promises. This is what is happening in these opening verses.

Covenant Benefits

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In v1 we read: “the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward”.God is saying, “Abram are you worried about your safety given your isolated situation? Don’t be, I will protect you!” God is able to protect his people against insurmountable odds.

It was this knowledge that equipped, David to face Goliath. It was this knowledge that caused Paul to write, ‘If God is for us who can be against us.’ Rom 8.31. Do we trust God to be our shield, our hiding place? Other shields will ultimately fail and bring with them bitter disappointment but not God.

Covenant Benefits

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Abram had also turned his back on the reward of riches that the king of Sodom had offered him. And into that situation God also spoke, ‘I am your very great reward’. Infinitely more than material blessing was on offer. On one occasion, Peter was feeling very sorry for himself because of the material poverty that was his as a result of his faith journey. And Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth no-one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life” Luke 18.29.

It is this eternal dimension that God presses home on all who, like Abram and Peter, are determined to put God and his kingdom first in their lives.

Covenant Benefits

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Wonderful as all of these promises were, Abram was aware that the fulfilment of God’s covenant promises to him required him to have an heir. Sarah’s biological clock was ticking away. Something like seven years had passed since his failure in Egypt and subsequent restoration. But there was still no child.

God wanted Abram to grow if faith and God’s delays provide an opportunity for that to happen. When faith is challenged one of two things can happen, it can develop and grow or it can become stunted and shrivel. Abram’s faith was wilting.

Covenant Dilution

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We are often too ready to dilute God’s promises and to expect less of him than he intends to give. This is precisely what we find Abram doing. It was the custom of the time for a childless man to adopt his steward as his heir, to give him his name and the rights of inheritance.

Eliezer was Abram’s steward and clearly God’s promises could be fulfilled through him. And Abram thinks, ‘that gets poor God out of a bit of a difficulty!’

Covenant Dilution

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All Abram had to do was to lower his expectations of God and dilute the substance of God’s promises. But to lower our expectations is to diminish God. Abram had stopped expecting great things of God. We can identify with that can we not? We might even think that by reducing our level of expectancy we are ‘helping poor God out!’ But to think like that is to forget who God is. It is to bring God down to our level. J.B. Phillips once commented on Christians who had behaved in this way saying, “Your God is too small”.

Covenant Dilution

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God responded to Abram by calling him to go and have a look at the night sky. He is told to count the stars. I wonder how many stars Abram had counted before God said “so shall your offspring be” v5. Abram had been struggling to come to terms with the birth of just one heir but God says,

“Its time to see the big picture, you are going to be the father to countless millions! Instead of diluting the promise see something of the vastness of what I plan to do through you!”

And Abram believed God!

Covenant Dilution

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God had republished the covenant and enlarged Abram’s understanding of it. Abram “believed the Lord, and he [God] credited it to him as righteousness” v6. John Calvin calls this verse, which is quoted on three occasions in the N.T., ‘the hinge on which all religion turns’. How are we to understand it? The thing that Abram believed had the effect of causing God to ‘reckon him as righteous’.

The word, ‘credit’ or ‘reckon’, that is used here, has an accounting background. Accounting is a very exact discipline. You need to be 100% accurate if you are to do things properly 99% will not do!

The Heart of the Covenant

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If while producing church’s accounts the treasurer were to add an imaginary £50,000 to the church’s income just to cheer everyone up, he would not be doing his job properly. He would not be presenting a true and factual account. We have already discovered that Abram was not a perfectly righteous man. He did not measure up to God’s standard of perfection. How then do we explain this remarkable statement that God reckoned him as righteous?

The Heart of the Covenant

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In order to answer that question we turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he argues that in God’s sight ‘no one is righteous’ [Rom.3.20], that is no one is perfectly good from God’s perspective. Not even the most moral or the most religious person can by their best efforts give God the righteousness he requires.

Paul then goes on to describe another righteousness in Rom.3.21. Christ’s perfect 100% ‘righteousness’. Jesus, by his death on the cross, not only bore the punishment and penalty of his people’s sins, he made his 100% righteousness available to them. This righteousness becomes ours as we exercise faith in him. This doctrine, known as ‘justification by faith’, lies at the very heart of God’s covenant.

The Heart of the Covenant

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This is what Abram believed! Oh he did not know all that we know about Jesus but he grasped the rudiments of the gospel. The gospel is rooted in God’s covenant. Blessing for the whole world was to come through Abram’s seed, i.e. Jesus. This helps us to understand Jesus’ words in Jn.8.56 “Your father Abram rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

In Gal.3.8-9 Paul writes: “Consider Abram: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abram. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abram: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who have faith are blessed along with Abram, the man of faith.”

The Heart of the Covenant

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Of the various actions God takes to strengthen and encourage Abram’s confidence in the covenant perhaps the most gripping is the way in which the covenant promise is sealed by God. In Abram’s day human covenants were sealed by the two parties involved killing a number of animals. These animals were then divided into two with a path made between them. The two parties would then walk up and down that path.

By doing so they were saying, “If either of us breaks our covenant promise may our fate be the same as that of these animals”.

The Seal of the Covenant

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Now there is something unique about the covenant God made with Abram. After the animals are killed and the path formed, ‘God caused a deep sleep to fall on Abram’. He was not going to be allowed to participate in the promise making. God took upon himself the responsibility of establishing this covenant. Flawed human input would have compromised the covenant. God alone passed up and down this path in the visible symbols of light and refining fire.

In this way God was saying to Abram, ‘If I fail to keep my promise to you, a promise that has implications for the nations may I end up like these dead animals. May I self-destruct!’ This is one of the most incredible acts of God in the O.T.!

The Seal of the Covenant

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Picking up on this the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says in 6.16ff

“Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged”.

The Seal of the Covenant

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Men and women sometimes say, ‘How can I be sure that God will keep the promises that he makes in the gospel. How can I be sure of his of his pardon and forgiveness, of the promise of adoption, and of the offer of eternal life to repentant men and women of faith? It seems too good to be true!’ God’s covenant is unlike human covenants, which are broken on a daily basis. God says, “I’ll self-destruct before I break any of my covenant promises”. What a God and what a gospel!

Can you trust yourself to such a God? ‘Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness’. Your name can be substituted for that of Abram’s if you place your trust in God’s covenant promise and come to him in repentance and faith.

Conclusion

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