Genesis 15
Jun 19, 2022 2022-06-19 Ben Hoyer Genesis 15A study of Genesis 15 and God's covenant with Abraham, focusing on God's promise to be Abraham's shield and reward, and how Israel's identity was established by grace through Abraham before the conditional covenant given at Sinai.
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Um, but let's, I wanted to look at this passage. You have one of these cards that shows you the text that we're looking at for June, June 19th, shows Genesis chapter 15. Um, I want to look there. I'll get my notes open. Genesis chapter 15. And I, I mentioned last week a little bit real quickly. Genesis that is, um, right.
One of the most formative books in the scriptures for us. Um, we're pretty sure that Genesis got written down in those 40 years when Israel was wandering around the desert. Remember that, um, God had intended scenes where the story goes, the gods, God had intended to bring them out of Egypt like he did, miraculous and following the tense legs. They get bounty from the Israelites.
They move through the Red Sea. They go up to Sinai. They walk, they are attacked once on the way to Sinai, but within a matter of days they find themselves at Sinai. And God comes down, shakes the mountain, talks to Moses, gives in the plan. The 10 words of the tribe of their life will look like it makes this incredible commitment to Israel at Sinai. He says, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. He says, because you are Israel, my own, and this is, because the whole earth belongs to me, you will be this for me.
I have carried you on eagle wings to this place now being this for me. A couple of things that we sometimes forget, and that first part of the story right there, is that God left Israel before they've done anything for me. So the 10 commandments are this interesting conditional covenant that they get to stay in the land as long as they live a life that looks like this. But it's not a conditional covenant on their identity who they are, who they are as Israel is established before that.
It's established with Abraham. In generations before Sinai, Israel is established. In what's compelling about the story of Abraham, there's a lot of things, but the one thing that we'll look at today comes out in the second time that God calls him. He calls him first in Genesis chapter 12, and he called it again here in Genesis chapter 15, he'll do it again in 17 or 19.
But let's look at Genesis chapter 15, because that's the one that they tell us to look at. In Genesis chapter 15, verse 1, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. You're not Abraham. I'm a shield. The shield doesn't mean a lot to us probably because I don't have a shield at your house or if you have a concept in the field.
The technology of the field was a big evolving thing, especially when everybody was always under attack in tribal and feudal systems. And then when a task always was like hand in hand, the field's a big deal. Let's get a big piece of wood and put it in front of us so that they can't kill us the first time they'll try. A field's a big deal. It's like this interesting protection and then later the Romans really perfected field.
You know, they get the leather wrapped around it and they dip it in water from the state weather and the stainless inspired arrows. They get into being real big and they make these like battlements behind them. They walk behind them. They hold them over their heads for one can't fall. The field is like this interesting large scale protection that you hide behind. When you hear high in the field in the Old Testament, especially, it comes up in the Psalms.
It ought to. It's intended to communicate great comfort. Even rats, Abraham. We might embellish it a little bit to say, Abraham, calm down, man. Like you are stressed, Abraham. You are worried and calculated. Abraham, calm down and I am your steel.
Not your steam or your stratagem. Not your network or your dollars. Not your retirement plan or your employment position. Hey, Abraham, calm down and I am your steel. The voice of creation and life. The voice of the future and past.
The architect of death and eternity with a consistent and person to the people of God. Promises, Abraham, and you and I, and they calm down. I am your steel. Because Abraham, hey, Abraham. I am your steel. Fear not. I am your steel and so resting behind your shield.
Your reward will be very great. But Abraham said, yes, come in. And here I am, right? Oh Lord God, what will you give me for I continue to have this. And the air in the house is alienated to the mask. Yeah, Lord, it's great. It's about I'm standing here behind the shield. I'm all alone and I've got nothing man. It sounds nice. It actually even feels nice for a minute. But the reality is, life is hard and I don't seem a way for one thing to talk about last week.
It's just because you can't find the answer of generosity or justice or mercy in your life or the problems of the world. Does not mean they do not exist. Just because you can't find the reason behind the problem, just because you can't find the justice behind the injustice, just can't, just you can't find an avenue towards mercy in the midst of grace. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just means you can't find it. And Abraham is staying behind the field of God and God saying your reward will be great.
And he's a cool mess. I'm all alone here. I can't find a way where the reward lines up good. He's Arnold. It's nice. But it doesn't solve its problem. And the Abraham says, behold, you're giving no offspring. And remember my household will be my heir. He says the same thing twice. It's bothering me. Verse 4. And behold, the word the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir.
Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the side. If you are able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness. Here is the great virtue of Abraham. The God of creation and life looks at him and says, I would like to give you good things.
You cannot imagine a way where they will happen. Good things beyond your understanding, reckoning, or ability to count. I would like to give you good things. You cannot imagine a way where they will happen. Good things beyond your understanding, reckoning, or ability to count. I would like to give you good things. And Abraham, against all hope, in the hope, believed. Over and over again.
This is the bottom line virtue of Abraham. This is what he does. This is why we call our God. We got to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because in this one place, Abraham sets a beautiful example for him. That in the face of confusing situations of the world, the opportunity is to believe, of course, this is the great fatal fall of humanity. We got king. Believe God will give us good things.
We just can't. This is the source of all the problems. This is what Adam and Eve could not do, right? God gives them creation and all things. And if they are, he is not giving them everything. They are sure they can do better than what he has got. Abraham, against all hope, is hope, believed that God has a way to get him right.
He is looking for us. He gets the thing. He believes the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Um, Isaac is a real church word, you know? Right, Isaac is. The times he was where Isaac is used. It feels like a Mike Myers kid or something. The only other place righteous might get used. Is it Mike Myers?
Wayne and Garth? Yeah. I mean, I don't, Regis, is it going to move into your everyday language? But the intention behind the word of righteousness is that, um, especially when we talk about the righteousness of God, is that you have nothing to hide.
Um, that all aspects of you, not your performance, you can't have righteous acts without righteous acts and being. That you are fully and completely in right standing with God. You are. Sometimes, uh, what I want to do here a little bit is we're going to un-talk righteousness. A trusted Paul goes through it really, uh, cazing in his letters to the Romans.
It's kind of seen for him. I look it up. It's like the word righteousness goes up over 30 times in the book of Romans. He's writing, uh, his notion of the gospel ahead to the person Rome before he gets this. And one of the main themes that the whole letter to Rome, uh, centers around is this idea that you can do life before God. And this is not some kind of, uh, pious or, uh, false covering.
Sometimes, this is this idea or it's said in, uh, Christian circles that God looked at you through Jesus. And he sees the righteousness of Christ when he looked at you. When he looked at you, he sees you. Sometimes, even people say that and, uh, they're lifting it. The gospel is better news than that. What happens here with Abram is not that somehow his, um, his shortcoming and failures, his twisted nature and self-serving self is covered up or looked past or beyond.
In his faith, he is transformed because he believes God will give him good things because God offers to give him good things and Abram says, I'll take it. God transforms him from the inside out and makes him all together like him. Abram himself, in all his nuances and peculiarities, all of his little twitches and insecurities are made fully right and acceptable and pleasing to the creator of the university arbiter of life and death.
The sustainer of existence forever is pleased with the person of Abram for whom he is right and he is. Why? No, no. I think God just likes him. Uh, this is the great promise of Al-Dana. You can be right there.
If you'd like. She is. And future. Yes. Let's look at it real quickly. Uh, I mean, real quickly. We're going to go through a several positive interesting moments. I've said in this room before, I think Paul would come as some kind of genius. And I just want to show you in one way, kind of quickly, if I could, how he builds the taste around righteousness over several captions.
Um, if I just started getting into it and it's going to be hard for us to track, but we'll go, we'll go through some here. The first mention of righteousness is in Romans chapter one, verse 17. For it for all started 16 for I'm not ashamed of the gospel. For it's the power of God, the salvation to everyone who believes to the Jews earth and also to the great for in it the righteousness of God's revealed from faith for.
As it is written, the righteous started by faith. It's like a Jesus statement for him. It's going to like blow apart and then sew back together. You just need it. But he's not ashamed of the gospel. Well, because it is the way by which you are transformed into something holy. You become most fully yourself in other places. We say that you are changed from glory to glory. And we talked about the idea of glory before that Gordon something is revealed for what it's bringing in and out your cold inside of you from your mother's womb off into eternity is a creation of unique and particular creation of the God with which he is slowly satisfied.
And that is fun. Unmired and unbroken and it comes back to you comes at the full and complete gift of God. And this is the gospel that Jesus is that and resurrection has made a way for that you to emerge and exist fully and forever. I'm not saying the gospel because it reveals the full satisfaction of God in the people of creation.
It opens up eternity in the right standing with God. It comes by faith. Do you want it? Is it there for you? Believe and receive it. The righteous are led by faith. Okay. That's pretty cool. But for some reason we have trouble with it all the time. He comes back to register in Roman chapter three. We mentioned it in verse five, but I want to look around verse twenty one.
Because it's hard to figure out. Once you once you understand that humanity has the capacity to live a life. Holy pleasing the God with the God of universe as you'll feel and your provider. It's hard to imagine that you may have the path of it and then you start looking around and wondering who gets the who has that.
Who's living with that right now. Have I received it? Abram received it because we saw it. He wrote down the above and you start doing this interesting thing where you try to figure out animal eye license and an R. day righteous. Am I right? It's an R. day righteous. And then you start looking at how we behave and how we live in order to measure it out. This is part of why it becomes hard to like Abram.
This take what God did and Paul gets into that some in Roman chapter three. But in verse twenty one, he says, now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God first dates into this Christ for all who gain you. For there is no distinction. For all that sinned and Paul and shortly before your God and are justified by his grace as a gift.
Through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. From God put forward as he propitiated God's blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness. Because in his divine forbearance he had passed over form of sin. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be dressed aside and the dressifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. To what he said is, you might be tempted to believe that your righteousness, your right standing and seated noted before God is gone because for heaven's sake you think and act terribly at times.
It's hard for you to find the capacity to love generously and forgive free. You have to try and build strategies and keep coming back to strategies to tear about somebody beside yourself in any meaningful way. You have trouble loving people in your own house, not to mention your neighbor or your enemy.
You start looking at your life as you feel like for sure the righteousness of God if it was ever inside of me before. If God was ever pleased with my peculiarity and nuances I left that person a long time ago and failed and faltered and left. And to your doubting heart the ancient apostolic Paul says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
If you are not defined by your verse choices or your basis instinct you are defined by the prerogative of God. Do you think when God calls Abram that Abram has his own, that Abram hasn't sought of himself solely, that he hasn't poured it and stolen and lied and treated. Of course he has a great version of Abram that he believes the word of God over his own doubting heart and his own wandering mind. He believes the word of God and is credited to him the righteousness today.
There's a degree that you doubt, fear and faltered. To the degree that you load the choices that you've made, perplexed with good reason. Don't let your emotions determine your reality. Don't let your wandering mind scheme a future for you that is not birthed by the God of the universe. There needs the word of God when he says all has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore you, yes, you can be righteous.
Apart from work. I don't care what you have done or will do. You can't escape the word and will of the God. I know I'm delivering the point, but Paul does. For talking. Look, he goes again. 411. It's actually 4 verse 11. He's trying to say, one of the big things is that people say as part of the work of God,
by their work, by what they've done. In chapter 4 verse 11, he says, it was not answered, but before he was criticized. He received the sound circumcision as a feel of the righteousness that he had by faith. Well, he was still uncircumcised, meaning God gave the righteousness to Abram. Made Abram fully pleasing to God before Abram had done anything. That if you want to live a life that makes sense, it starts with this.
An end in an action. That the righteousness of God always and only has come out his prerogative as a free gift. He mentions righteousness again for 13, 422. I'm being reminded that 518. The struggle is we would like a congruent life.
It would be easier to believe the great virtue of Abram. It'd be great, great, easier for us to embody that great virtue of Abram, to believe and receive the things from God. If our lives were too big, we didn't leave such incongruent life. If I didn't have to believe the word of God over and against the places that I make, my faulting hearts, my doubting love. What are we to do in verse 5, verse 18, he gets into it therefore, he's saying,
if one cuts pathway to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to death of Jesus and life for all. For it's by the one man's disobedience, the many will make sin, and so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made of righteous. Now the law can be increased, now the law can be increased to trespass. This is a argument made before the incentives. When you have the law, it's in order that you would know where you were sitting, in that you could repent and not be defined by your actions.
So actually, the presence of the law increases the instances of sin because we're more aware of it. But then it says, but grace abounded all the more. When a sin-winding death, grace might also bring righteousness into your eternal life, you think. If your ancient real life is bothering you, it's an opportunity because where you recognize your failure more often, you can find more grace. It's a cycle that brings you back into the goodness of God.
You say, the burden you get is you feel like a failure. Every time you feel like a failure, you get a stress measure of grace from God, so that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So that if you feel like you're a sin, this is why Paul can confident and say, I am the chief of sinners, because he knows the mourns acquainted with his sins, the mourns acquainted with the forgiveness of God and the forgiveness of grace, restoration of God that awakens righteousness in you.
You say, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. If your ancient real life is bothering you, run to forgiveness. Don't be bogged down by the nation that you are defined by the incongrual things. But come again to the grace that is sufficient for you, for righteousness. Okay, last time, guys. In chapter six. Fifteen. Because now he's built a case that sin brings us to the grace of God.
And in verse 15 he says, what then are we to sin because we are not on the wall but under grace? So we just keep on going. And so though it doesn't matter, because it does it matter, this is the weird sin. And Paul's argument here in chapter six, if we were to start to begin on top of the whole argument, it's really amazing. So that someone just goes on doing whatever we want, and he never says, you can't go on doing just whatever you want because it's wrong.
He just doesn't say that. He's not worried about what's right and what's wrong because the grace is sufficient. It's a small argument to say, be right, don't be wrong, be better, don't be wrong. What then are we to all be to sin because you're not involved by no means? Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone who's obedient, I'm going to summarize this for you. Because when you continue to go to the well of your unrighteous actions, your faith is instant.
When you continue to be self-serving, when you continue to be greedy, when you continue to look at what you can take from people rather than what you can give, it binds you to action. Your actions of addiction only cycle guys, choices made out of anger or shame or lack of ideas only buying you to those all the more.
And he said, but thanks to you guys, do you not know that you present yourself to anyone who's a BS slave? You are placed to the one who they are based. Do you sin, the truth to death or obedience which leads to righteousness? So thanks to you guys that you who are one-place cistern have become obedient to the heart to the standard of some cultural community and having them set spring from sin have become slaves for righteousness. I'm speaking in terms of your
! Your members are slaves to impurity and to the law of the world. Now that you know, it doesn't matter what you do, that you are wholly pleasing to God apart from the choices that you have made or will be. It doesn't matter. That you can't stack up so much failure or self-fistiness or self-serving actions in the world.
You can't stack up so much of that that the prerogative of God doesn't overwhelm it. You can't know that. Believe and receive that you are wholly pleasing to God completely apart from your actions. How will you act? And he says, what is better for you? Just make choices and see what you like. And his contention is that the way you don't know leads to life forever.
I think for me the notion of God's unique creation of me, satisfaction in me, and commitment to me through Jesus has opened up our infinite possibility for the things I could do with my life, for the capacity to love at higher expectations for my ability to serve and love in the world, not because I am enamored with myself because I know God makes good things and God has made me.
And for heaven's sake, he is demonstrated in the cross and over and over again that he will not abandon me no matter how many times I fail him and the same is true for you. No matter how many times you fail him, he will not abandon you. And out in front of you is an eternity of creation and life, lining up forever with the God who made you and loved you like Abram before you receive the free gift of righteousness and the gift of God.
Let me pray that we might believe and receive the righteousness of God. Good Lord, thank you for your overwhelming generosity. Peace has or empower the disease like Abram to receive righteousness and then to live like Paul in light of that righteousness.
Forgive us our failure and hope coming today and allow us to give us the free gift of faith to believe that you are our shield today.