This morning we’re entering the stories of God’s
relationship with Abraham. Since the
creation of the world, God’s been working with humanity as whole and now God takes
a different path in his relationship with humanity, he chooses one person to
work through to reveal himself to all people, and he chooses Abraham. The Lord’s
very deliberate in his choosing in order to reveal his glory and power. The
Lord approaches Abram and tells him to pack up his life and leave his clan, his
country, and his security and trust the Lord’s promises.
Can you imagine getting a call from the Lord to leave everything behind and start a new life in a
place you’ve never seen? Some of you understand the difficulty in this call, having
immigrated here to Canada, not necessarily for yourself, but for your children
and grandchildren. You, or your parents or grandparents were willing to
sacrifice so you could have better lives. You understand how big a change the
Lord is asking of Abram. Abram immigrates with Sarai and his nephew Lot and
Lot’s family, and all his servants and slaves. Abram is 75 years old with no
kids; no spring chicken and his wife is barren.
Abram has a choice: trust God or to trust in the life he’s created over the years.
Trusting the Lord will be hard because the promises made to Abram seem almost
impossible to believe; promises of becoming a great nation and of being a
blessing to all people on earth, promises of the Lord’s blessings and
protection when Sarai is barren. Abram chooses the Lord, he chooses trust. I’ve
been thinking a lot about trust the past year. Our culture doesn’t trust very
easily anymore. There’s been a huge loss of trust in the past couple of years
in government, churches and pastors, in leadership of almost any kind. Trust in
each other has suffered; people tend to look for the worst in a person rather
than giving each other the benefit of the doubt when there’s disagreements.
Trust is a choice we make and if we tend towards not trusting, this affects our
relationship with Jesus, making it more difficult to trust in him, leaving us
to trust only in ourselves. This leads to chaos and brokenness, which is part
of why God makes covenants with his people; to help us to learn trust in him.
Abram makes his way to Shechem where the Lord meets
him, telling Abram, “To your
offspring I will give this land.” As Abram settles into the area, he and
Lot separate. Lot gets into trouble and Abram saves him by going to battle
against a coalition of 4 kings. God gives him the victory and Abram meets
Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Lord who blesses Abram. Abram has
established himself as a military power in the area; people now see him as a
potential ally or threat. Abram’s safety is no longer as secure as it was
before defeating the 4 kings.
The Lord approaches Abram, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your
shield, your very great reward.” God will protect him. The word “reward” seems to trigger Abram, reminding him of the
Lord’s promises of descendants, but he’s getting older and so is Sarai. What does
the Lord really mean with his promise? Abram tries to interpret the Lord’s
promise, “You have given me no children; so a servant
in my household will be my heir.” How often we still do that today; we
read a promise in the Scriptures and then try to fulfill it in our own strength
and way instead of patiently waiting and trusting in the Lord to do his thing
in his way?
The Lord takes Abram outside and they contemplate the
night sky in all its glory and wonder. “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood
will be your heir. Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can
count them. So shall your offspring be.” Think of what the night sky
looks like when you’re away from city lights, like when you’re in the mountains
away from artificial sources of light and how when the stars come out, the
beauty and wonder touch our souls in a deeper way, helping us understand when
the psalmist tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God. In this
moment, Abram believes, such a simple statement, and yet life changing!
Paul talks about this moment in his letter to the
Romans, “It was not through the law
that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of
the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith…. Therefore, the
promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all
Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who
have the faith of Abraham…. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so
became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him.” Abram
does nothing to deserve or earn anything from God, but his simple act of
believing in faith is credited to Abram as righteousness, as the right response
to God.
The Lord enters into a formal covenant with Abram, building on the covenants with Adam and Noah which
include the call to be fruitful and multiple.
Now the Lord promises an heir to Abram from his own flesh who will be a
blessing to the nations and a land for them to live in. This covenant is
ultimately fulfilled in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who
calls people to himself into his kingdom. Abram, even though he believes, still
wonders how it’s all going to happen, and in a roundabout way, asks the Lord
for a sign.
The Lord calls Abram to do something we find strange, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and
a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram
brings them to the Lord; he cuts the larger animals in half, and arranges them
opposite to each other. The birds he leaves whole and places them across from
each other. The Jewish
Commentary at Chabad.org says, “He (the Lord) was forming a covenant with
him to keep His promise, to cause his sons to inherit the land, as it is
written (verse 18): “On that day, the Lord formed a covenant with Abram,
saying, etc.,” and it is the custom of those who form a covenant to divide an animal
and to pass between its parts.” We’re given an example of this covenant
making in Jeremiah 34:19 between the Lord and Jewish leaders, “The leaders of Judah and
Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who
walked between the pieces of the calf.” The pathway of animals creates a
pathway of blood, as they would make a slight trench between the pieces of the
animals. This highlights the importance of the covenant and it also means there’s
serious consequences for the side of the covenant who fails to live up to the
terms of the covenant.
The Lord comes again to Abram in a deep sleep. Moses describes it as a thick
and dreadful darkness. The Hebrew implies fright and horror; this
is a scary moment for Abram. Now the Lord gives Abram a glimpse of the future
of his descendants, a future filled with both tragedy and triumph. They’ll
leave this Promised Land, but the Lord will be with them and bring them home
again. Many see the creation of Israel in 1948 as another fulfillment of this
covenant again. Now the Lord appears as a smoking
firepot with a blazing torch and passes between the pieces. This image
of God as fire echoes all through Israel’s history and is one of the names of
God, the Shechinah. One dictionary describes Shechinah as, “Transliteration
of Hebrew word not found in the Bible but used in many of the Jewish writings
to speak of God’s presence. The term means “that which dwells,” and is implied
throughout the Bible whenever it refers to God’s nearness either in a person,
object, or His glory. It is often used in combination with glory to speak of
the presence of God’s shekinah glory.”
The Lord binds himself to this covenant, and by passing through the blood pathway on his own, he
takes on the entire responsibility of the covenant on himself. The covenant
points us to the covenant of blood Jesus makes with us on the cross. Through Jesus’
active obedience and sacrifice on the cross, which only he’s capable of doing, we’re
made right with God and can have confidence in God’s faithfulness to us in all
his promises of forgiveness, healing, and new life in his kingdom. Abram
believes and chooses trust in God. The same challenge is there for us today;
the call to believe and allow that belief to grow into a deep trust in Jesus
and his kingdom. Jesus has shown himself worthy of our faith and trust. This is
why we share our faith stories, to remind ourselves of why we trust Jesus, and
to help others to believe and trust with us.
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