Origins: Abraham Pt 4 – Faithful to the end
Readings: Genesis 15, Romans 4. 13-25
As we’ve been reading about Abram, as we’ve been exploring his story we’ve been looking for Gospel echoes. Because we believe that the Gospel runs from Genesis to Revelation, it doesn’t begin with Jesus. And in our passage today, in a throwaway line about Abram’s belief, and in an incredibly strange ritual, we find the strongest echoes yet of the Gospel in which we believe.
Life can be overwhelming can’t it. The many trials and difficulties of this life press in on every side. We’re beset by struggles, by sickness, by doubts, by the failings or attacks of others, by death. And when life truly overwhelms us, when this world overwhelms us we call that fear. We’re fearful. When can’t see a way through, a way back to better times, or a way forward that looks good and pleasing, fear overtakes us.
Well Abram is feeling rather similar in Genesis today. God gave him all those promises at the start of the story, gifted him this land, the land which will eventually become the nation of Israel. God has promised to make his name great and to bless the world through him. And Abram immediately believed and went off where God led. And God has just come through for Abram, he’s just defeated the combined armies of 5 kings in order to rescue his nephew. But now doubts are creeping in, now fear is starting to creep in. Perhaps Abram is worried that these armies will come and seek retribution, perhaps he’s having second thoughts about giving back all the stuff he just won in the battle, returning it to the King of Sodom, and is wondering if he should have held onto it. Either way Abram is feeling a little wobbly, a little fearful and so God comes to Abram and reassures him, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” It’s God who defends him, he need not fear.
But Abram is afraid, but a deeper fear. He has no children, God has promised to make his name great and yet he has no-one to carry on his name. God has promised Abram this land and yet there’s no-one to inherit it. How is Abram supposed to trust God, and to trust in his promises if even the basics to fulfil them seem to be lacking. Here we have a man who is often held up as a champion of faith, who the New Testament holds up as a champion of faith, and he is, and yet here he’s plagued with doubt. How am I meant to trust your promises Lord, if even the most basic of things needed for those to happen are missing?
I wonder if you’ve ever felt like that. God, you say this, you promise this, and I want to believe but this is lacking. You’ve promised to never leave nor forsake me and yet it doesn’t feel like you’re here with me. You promised that you only mean good for me and yet I or a loved one is suffering greatly. How can I trust you for salvation, or everlasting life, if you don’t even seem to be coming through on the tangible promises? We’re not alone when we’re fearful, when we doubt, even Abram, that great hero of faith wrestled with it.
And so God reassures Abram that he will have an heir, and not just a legal heir but a flesh and blood heir, this heir will be Abram’s own son. Now over the next few chapters Abram will wrestle with whether it needs to be his wife’s son but that’s for next week. So having made this promise that he will have a son God brings Abram outside and tells him to count the stars, for that is how numerous his offspring will be. What an amazing picture to be given. Have you ever tried to count the stars? When we were on the youth pilgrimage earlier in the summer we stayed up to watch a meteor shower. And as you’re stood there looking up at the stars you could start to count them, but the longer you’re looking more are appearing and so you start to add them, but your eyes are still adjusting and even more start appearing. What a picture to be given. This man is struggling with doubts about an heir and God takes him outside and tells him that his descendants will be as countless as the stars. What a promise.
And as the assurance of this God reminds Abram of what he has done so far, that he is the one who has brought him from Ur to this land, the land promised, for him to take possession of it. And Abram believes the Lord, we’re told, he believes God, but it throws up another question: how can he know he will possess it?
And so we encounter a very strange ritual. It only occurs in one other place in Scripture and that’s in Jeremiah 34. 18. But put simply it’s a form of solemn oath. You cut the animals in two and then you pass between them making your oath, and in some sense it’s saying ‘if I break this oath my body will be torn apart like these animals, I’ll be handed over to my enemies’. In other words, tear me apart if I don’t come through for you. It’s a rather pagan ritual but common in those days. And what would happen is that both parties would pass through the halves as they make their oath to one another, make a covenant. One party agrees to do something and in return the other party agrees to do something and then they both pass through. And yet here, Abram does nothing, he doesn’t pass through the animals. Instead God passes between the carcasses alone. Are you spotting the echoes yet?
God references the escape from Egypt, he says ‘this is what’s going to happen, you’re going to live here but your descendants are going to live in Egypt’ and he starts to talk about the Exodus. And as God passes through in smoke and fire you might remember that picture from the Exodus of God leading his people through the wilderness in a pillar of smoke and fire.
But here God is taking all the responsibility on himself, all of the risk is on him. He’s making it clear as day, in the most solemn way, that he will be faithful to his word. Abram need do absolutely nothing. There isn’t the Covenant at Sinai, what we call the Old Covenant or Old Testament; you do this, I’ll do this. The more tit for tat that we’re more used to in our own lives, you do something and I’ll do something in return. That’s not the language here, it’s all gift, it’s all grace. God will be absolutely true to his word, it will not fail, he will not fail. And if Abram messes up, God will take responsibility. Because at the heart of our passage are possibly some of the most famous words from Abram’s story, one’s we hear Paul quote in Romans today, referencing this passage; ‘Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness’. Abram is counted righteous (right with God is what that means) not because of what he has done, not because he has been obedient to the Law. He is righteous, right with God, because he believes. As I mentioned the Sinai covenant, the ten commandments and all of that, dictates law to make righteous. You keep this law and in makes you right with God. But here, in the Covenant with Abram, Abram believes and is counted right with God. This is at the heart of our faith. We aren’t counted as right before God by our keeping of one side of a contract, we’re counted as righteous because we believe.
So what is it to believe? Belief isn’t the same as just listing off a set of facts or propositions. ‘I believe that gravity holds the moon in orbit, I believe the Sun gives us light and heat’. Those things are true, they’re things we believe, but that’s not what’s going on here. Abram’s believing the truth that God is giving him, yes, but Abram believes the Lord, he trusts him. His belief is about trust, it’s rooted in the person of God. He looks at God and finds reliability, firmness, stability, and puts his trust there. Believing isn’t simply about facts, the devil believes God exists, that Jesus died for sins, but no-one would call him a Christian. Belief also needs to involve trust. That’s what’s happening to Abram here, he hears God’s word, and his heart and soul reach out to God in trust, and he chooses to move forwards, to live, in that reality. Abram hears God’s word to him, and he believes the one who says it. And God counts it to him as righteousness.
If today you’re struggling, if you’re doubting, questioning. If you’re wondering if this is all worth it. If the world is threatening to overwhelm you, do what Abram did. Fix your eyes on God, and let him overwhelm you instead. Fix your mind on his promises and his solemn oath that he will be faithful no matter what, look back in your life, and look in the Scriptures about how he has been faithful so far, and use that to trust that he will come through for you even if it seems impossible.
And in fixing your eyes on Jesus, allow faith to flow, to reach out in trust, and then look to the cross. Because there’s another day of deep darkness and terror. Where God is torn apart for how we have broken faith with him. Remember he took all the risk on himself in that covenant with Abram, it’s a foreshadowing of that moment on the cross. God calls us to be faithful to him, but even when we are not he takes on the consequences for it. He is so faithful he will uphold his side of the covenant even if we won’t, he’ll even pay the price for us breaking faith with him. At the cross Jesus deals with our sin, our breaking of God’s ways, so that we can be restored to him, brought back into relationship with him. At the cross the new and better covenant is made, in which we believe the Lord, trust in the cross of Jesus , and are made righteous, made right with him. At the cross we don’t offer a drop, Jesus doesn’t spare a drop. We deserve to lose our lives for breaking faith with God, he’s the one who gives his life. We’re the ones who break the covenant, his is the body that’s broken. What an amazing God we have, a God who is faithful to us even when we are faithless.
But it gets bigger! Because through the cross we have also been grafted in, remember that promise to Abram at the beginning of the passage, that his descendants would be as many as all the stars in the sky. Through the cross of Jesus we have been brought into the family of God, brought back into relationship with him, and we’ve been made part of the family of Abraham. We’re part of that family of faith. Through the cross of Jesus we are part of that family, who outnumber the stars in the sky. In you, in me, God’s promise to Abraham is fulfilled in a way Abraham could never have imagined. God’s purposes do not fail, even if he fulfils them in ways we could never imagine.
My brothers and sisters, when the world overwhelms you look to the cross. When fear grips and you wonder if God really is for you, look to the cross. Look to the deep and dreadful darkness of that day, look to him and know, though it cost him everything, he is utterly for you. When you turn to him in faith and trust he will not let you down. And that once you are part of his family it is true forever and without end that he will be your God, and you will be his people.
Amen.