“1 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” 2 But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” 4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
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What are you looking for when you hire someone? Some of you have quite a bit of experience with that. You’ve got a farm. You’ve got a shop. What are you looking for when you hire someone? You’re looking for someone who works hard. You are looking for someone who is willing to learn.
What are you looking for when you marry someone? Well, you are looking for something different of course. It’s a different relationship. In marriage, you are looking for intimacy. You are looking for friendship. You are looking for faithfulness.
What are you looking for when you get a babysitter? You are looking for a level head. You are looking for a caring heart. You are looking for responsibility.
You look for something when you form a relationship with anyone. What do you think God is looking for when He forms a relationship with people? You are expecting something in your relationships. What do you think God expects in His relationships? What do you think He expects from you?
God is looking for faith. Intimacy is the lifeblood of the marriage relationship. Responsibility is the lifeblood of the babysitter relationship. Faith is the lifeblood of the God relationship. If there is no intimacy, the marriage is in trouble. If the babysitter is not responsible, that’s the end of that particular business relationship. If there is no faith, that’s the end of the relationship with God. Faith is the lifeblood of a relationship with God. That’s the claim of this sermon: faith is the lifeblood of a relationship with God.
We see this in three points. First: the presence of God. Second: questions for God. Third: believing God. We see the presence of God encounter Abram in verse 1. We see Abram ask questions of God in verses 2-5. We see Abram believing God in verse 6.
First: the presence of God. This whole sermon series is about faith in the God of promises. We are looking at different aspects of faith in promises as we go because the author of Genesis highlighted different aspects of Abram’s faith in the promises as he wrote. Genesis, and Scripture as a whole, spends so much time focusing on Abram not because it had to, but because faith is the only fitting way to relate to God and that’s what Abram is famous for; he is the father of our faith.
In our last study, we saw Abram take the promises of God on the offensive. He pit them against Kedorloamer and found that the promises were more powerful than these seemingly unstoppable kings. It seems that some time has passed between that and what we find here in Genesis 15:1, ‘After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”’
We don’t know how much time elapsed, and, in a way, it doesn’t matter. Genesis doesn’t aim to give us a comprehensive record of the life of Abram. It takes aim at the parts of Abram’s life that have to do with promises.
God appeared to Abram and communicated that He was faithful to the promises. That’s part of what’s going on when He called Himself Abram’s shield in verse 1. “After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield.”
You saw God act as Abram’s shield in his battle against the kings. Even the Hebrew for “shield” in this verse is almost identical to the form of the word “delivered” in Melchizedek’s words, “blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” God had been faithful. God delivered Abram’s enemies into his hands. God had shielded Abram. The promises had teeth and could be trusted.
God began by saying, “do not be afraid.” This is often how God and His angels greet humanity because such an encounter is terrifying. That’s certainly part of the purpose of these words. It’s also possible that God said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,” because He knew what was on Abram’s mind; “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Perhaps God began with the words, “do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,” because He knew Abram needed to remember that the promises had teeth and could be trusted. Abram had been right to trust them when he left Ur. He was right to trust them in the battle of the kings. He would be right to trust them today. He didn’t need to be afraid of the future because God was a promise keeper.
God reminded Abram of the reliability of the promises. He also told Abram how much remained to be seized. He said, “I am your shield, your very great reward.” There was still a reward to be seized. It was a reward. It was a great reward. It was a very great reward. This is super-abundant language. Abram doesn’t simply have a reward coming. He has a great reward coming. He has a very great reward coming.
My guess is that if you are on the younger side of life, you love getting mail. Maybe you get a magazine every month. Maybe you get Ranger Rick. Maybe you get Cricket. I remember getting CDs in the mail from BMG as a teenager. It’s always a treat to get something fun in the mail. So kids, I want you to imagine that your dad brings home a box from the post office with your name on it. He tells you it’s for you and says, “I think you’re going to like this. It’s a gift. It’s not just a gift, it’s a great gift. It’s not just a great gift, it’s a very great gift.” That’s the level of excitement proper to this phrase, “your very great reward” in verse 1.
So what is this reward? Look at verse 1. What is the very great reward? One of my responsibilities is to train you in the Scriptures. What is the very great reward in verse 1?
God. Abram’s very great reward is God. “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” Calvin is right, “God not only pours upon us the abundance of His kindness, but offers Himself to us, that we may enjoy Him.”
The good news is that you can have God. The good news is not merely that you can be forgiven. Forgiveness is just a means to God. The good news is not merely that you can escape hell. Escaping hell is just a means to God. The good news is that you can have God.
God gives you Himself. If that’s not enough for you, you have some hard thinking to do because if God’s not enough for you, you will never be satisfied in this life or the next.
God gives Himself. You see this in the incarnation. God doesn’t merely give mercy in the gospels, although He does give that. He doesn’t merely give healing, although He does give that. He doesn’t merely give wisdom in the gospels, although He does give that. He gives Himself. He gives His Son. He is the treasure.
You can’t read the gospels without being struck by the fact that Jesus is the treasure. You see Mary sitting with Jesus and Martha trying to pull her away. Jesus rebukes Martha saying, “no. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” There is nothing better than Jesus. The good news is that you can have God Himself. Why are you wasting your life putting other pleasures first? Or in other words, “I am your very great reward.” I hope you see Him that way.
Abram saw God that way, but Abram still had questions about the promises. Now for the first time, we see Abram ask questions of God. That’s our second point: questions for God. God was ready for these questions. When God said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward,” He knew Abram’s question in verse 2 was coming, “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Do you think it’s right to ask God questions like that? Some people would say it’s irreverent. They view Abram’s questions as disrespectful. God had promised Abram descendants. That should have settled it. God had just told Abram that He himself was Abram’s reward and now Abram had the gall to say, “what can You give me since I remain childless?” That’s pretty bold.
No, that’s faith. Walter Brueggemann is right, “Clearly the faith to which Abraham is called is not a peaceful, pious acceptance. It is a hard-fought and deeply argued conviction.”
Abram had a relationship with God. If you’ve never questioned God like Abram does here ask yourself, “why not?” Religion without relationship would never think to ask God these sorts of questions. Men and women in relationship with God ask these sorts of questions all the time. Read the Psalms.
God has no interest in religion without relationship. Abram took God seriously enough to ask questions. God took Abram seriously enough to respond; verse 4, ‘Then the word of the Lord came to [Abram]: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then [God] said to [Abram], “So shall your offspring be.”
Now there is an appeal to power tucked in these words. God was showing Abram all the stars that He Himself had made. “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” God was displaying His own power to help Abram trust.
That appeal to power, however, is only implicit. What’s explicit is the promise, “Eliazer will not be your heir. You will have your own Son. Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”
Abram had questions about the promise and so God repeated the promise. God knew that Abram just needed to hear it again. Sometimes we just need to hear it again. Sometimes you kids need to hear the words, “I love you. You are so precious to me,” from dad and mom again. Sometimes God’s people need to hear the words, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” They need to hear them again from their God. Abram knew the promise. God knew that he needed to hear it again. He knew that Abram needed to hear the object of his faith again to strengthen his faith.
It’s interesting that God chose to validate the promise with the promise. He could have given Abram a sign to validate the promise. ‘Abram, are you worried that you won’t have an heir? Well, look at the stars. I’m going to make half of them red for the next week as a sign to you that you will have a child.’ God didn’t. He just promised it again, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”
God knew that Abram needed to recognize that the promises were certain because and only because they were backed by God. “We are struggling, as was Abraham,” writes Walter Brueggemann, “with the emergence of a certitude that is based not on human reasons but on a primal awareness that God is God.” The value of the promises of God rests on the character of the God who spoke the promises. If God can be trusted, the promises can be trusted. “How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent word! What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?” What more could God say to Abram? Nothing more. That’s why He said the promise again.
The promise is more certain than any sign. Think about it in terms of a wedding ceremony. Anyone who understands marriage knows that it all hangs on the vows, which are promises. Just because that man bought that girl a fifteen-thousand-dollar ring doesn’t mean he’ll be a good husband. He will be a good husband if he is the sort of man who keeps his promise, “I, take you, to be my wife, and I promise before God and all who are present here to be your loving and faithful husband as long as our lives shall last. I will love you and give myself up for you as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. I will serve you with tenderness and respect and encourage you to develop the gifts that God has given you.” If that man means it, there is nothing more that he could say. If he doesn’t mean it, nothing will make up for it.
Anyone who understands marriage will tell you that there is nothing deeper than the promises. Anyone who understands faith will tell you that there is nothing deeper than the promises. That’s why God repeated the promise to Abram. He had nothing greater to give. That’s part of what the author of Hebrews meant when he wrote, ‘When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for Him to swear by, He swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.”’
When God promises, He gives His best. In a very real way, He gives Himself. We say that a man is only as good as His word. God repeated the promise to Abram to say, ‘I’m only as good as my word.’ The word became flesh. God gives Himself. Abram believed that. That’s our final point: believing God.
In this relationship, God gave Himself by way of promises and Abram gave himself by way of faith. Abram believed this word from God not because it offered something he hadn’t heard before but because it was a word from God; that’s verse 6, “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”
This is the lifeblood of a relationship with God. This is why faith is credited as righteousness. You can’t have a relationship with God unless you believe Him. It’s no mistake that these words come before the covenant God made with Abram. A covenant is a sign of a relationship and a man cannot have a relationship with God in any other way than by faith.
Faith isn’t something that God simply decided could make a man righteous. People tend to think that way. They think that the Old Testament law is really what God wanted to use to make people righteous, but that proved too difficult, so He just tossed in faith as an option. ‘You can be saved on the equivalent of a participation award called faith. ‘Obedience is too hard. Try faith.’
That way of looking at it leads to all sorts of confusion. You wind up with an indeterminate number of beliefs that must be held in order to be saved. You wind up with confusion as to why a man who never encounters these beliefs is lost. In the end, you lose any sense of relationship with God. You lose anything that looks like the faith of Abram. Abram’s faith was credited as righteousness because faith is the only appropriate response to God.
This sort of faith was nothing new in Abram’s relationship with God. Abram left Ur by faith. We could have read, “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness” back in chapter 12. As Calvin put it, “we are not here told when Abram first began to be justified, or to believe God; but that in this one place it is declared, or related, how he had been justified through his whole life.”
There is nothing unique about this moment of faith in Abram’s life. It was the same faith he showed when he left Ur. It is the only sort of faith that can be credited to you as righteousness. You need faith like Abram. You need the sort of faith that is credited to you as righteousness.
When Abram stands before God, God will be looking for faith because that is what makes for righteousness. Intimacy is the lifeblood of the marriage relationship. Responsibility is the lifeblood of the babysitter relationship. Faith is the lifeblood of the God relationship. The same will go for you.
We know that Abram had faith because we are told how he responded to the word of God. “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” You can see whether you have faith by how you respond to the word of God. Jesus said it was that simple. He told those who didn’t believe what he said that, “you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
Now Jesus spoke those words to people who knew the word of God quite well. They would have said they believed, but they didn’t because they didn’t believe God when He stood before them.
Believing the word of God isn’t primarily a matter of creedal fidelity although that does come about as a result. Believing the word of God is a matter of coming under the word. That’s what you see in Abram. He heard, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you,” and he went. He heard, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be,” and he was reassured and believed.
He came under the word of God. He heard God’s word as if he were in a relationship with God because he was. He was willing to trust what God said simply because it was God who said it. He treated God as if He were God. That’s what God is looking for. It shouldn’t surprise us that that’s what Jesus was for in the gospels. It shouldn’t surprise us that’s what Jesus is looking for in disciples today. That’s faith that is credited as righteousness.
We know that Abram had it. The question is whether you have it. You can’t have any sort of real relationship with God without it. You can’t stand before God on judgment day without it. That shouldn’t surprise us. Intimacy is the lifeblood of the marriage relationship. Responsibility is the lifeblood of the babysitter relationship. Faith is the lifeblood of the God relationship. That’s what God is looking for. He is looking for people with faith like Abram. He sent His Spirit at Pentecost to make children of Abram out of all the nations. This work is ongoing. This faith is alive. This is what God is looking for. Will He find it in you? Amen.