Genesis 15
Is the covenant-maker also a covenant-breaker?
The pattern of Genesis continues: God's people living in God's place under God's rule. Being blessed, they are to bless others. Sin happens, but mercy, promise, and hope continue. God is active in his world and is bringing about his grand and glorious plan of rescue and redemption.
God promised Abram in Genesis 12.2: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. But you need people and a place in order to have a nation. Abram has neither. Will Abram still submit to God's rule? To God's plan and timetable? Will he believe God? Will he still trust and obey?
1. The Promised Child: Complaint and Conversation (1-6)
God knows Abram is afraid. So God comes to announce good news. Salvation. God meets him right where he's at and promises protection and provision.
Abram is about to engage in the unthinkable and we are about to discover that he is human. And he is not happy. Instead, he voices a concern… a complaint. One that has a note of exasperation, impatience even. A lament in which skepticism seems to be taking shape.
How he complains is instructive. His form of address is found normally in a prayer of intercession. It emphasizes, highlights, and reveals a true believer's heart – complete with all its questions and emotions. But it reveals a heart filled with respect and reverence.
Abram is still under the rule of God. He is aware that a slave is complaining… to his master. A creature… is bringing a concern to the creator. A mere man is having a conversation with God.
Abram receives and answer. He continues to believe God. He continues to trust God. He rests in God's promise.
2. The Promised Land: Confirmation and Covenant (7-21)
God goes on to remind Abram that he has kept him safe and secure over many a mile and many a day. God has brought him here to the Promised Land.
And this reminder, this pronouncement, prompts another question from Abram. Not an expression of doubt or unbelief, but a request for a sign of some sort. More along the lines of: I believe… help my unbelief!
God responds in a surprising way. He responds with a promise/prophecy about Abram's descendants and with a covenant. God appears in a theophany, making a personal, unconditional, unilateral, and binding covenant. If he does not perform… giving the descendants and the land… may he be cut in two and die like these animals.
3. Questions to consider before caregroup
How did this sermon affect your attitude about prayers of complaint? Of lament?
How would these prayers affect temptations towards bitterness? Injustice? Disappointment? Discouragement? Gossip and slander?
How did this sermon affect your ability to trust God during difficulty? Despair? Disappointment? Delay?
How is God's covenant with Abram the same as a Christian's covenant with Christ? How is it different?
