Faith is so central to Christianity and so familiar to us that sometimes we take it for granted. Nevertheless, it often requires courage to follow God into the Great Unknown, and in this world where obedience to His word so often goes against the grain, faith is often not easy.
Long ago, the patriarch Abraham faced very similar tests of faith and obedience. It was scary for Abraham to leave Ur, a place he had known for most of his life, and go to unfamiliar Haran. It was sad for him to leave his father behind when it came time for him to move again from Haran. It was difficult for him to give up his land and pass a portion of it to Lot. And perhaps he was also feeling alone and fearful that the enemies he had defeated would return and take revenge on him.
Yet, it was in the midst of all these things that the Lord came to reassure Abraham (at that time known as Abram).
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.”
Not only would God be Abraham’s protector and shield (he would live to a very old age: v15), but He would also be Abraham’s great reward, more than anything he had ever or could ever possess. God was telling Abraham that He was what Abraham was seeking and that Abraham would find his reward in a relationship with the one living God and everything that it brings.
Many years later, in John 14, after Jesus had revealed to His disciples the very difficult days that were to come, He comforted them, ‘Do not be troubled because I will hear and answer your prayers. Do not be troubled because I am going to send another Person who will be your counselor, who is going to help you, who is going to guide you, who is going to be in you and with you. I am going to give you peace such as the world has not known.” No matter the circumstances, they had nothing to fear, for they had known the Father.
Where do we gain courage for our faith? Like it was for Abraham and the disciples, this courage can only come because we know a faithful and sovereign God in a very personal manner. Recently, Pr Ramesh Kumar shared a powerful message in Destiny C3 about the God of Covenant, bringing a deeper appreciation of the magnitude of His grace – and how Abraham responded in faith – in the process.
Pr Ramesh conveyed that Christ Jesus is our all in all. Everything that we could ever need or want is found in Him. We pray for our daily bread, Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35). We pray for light and wisdom, and Jesus is the light (John 8:12). Christ answers all our prayers – for an understanding of God (John 8:58), protection and provision (John 10:11), health and life (John 11:25), understanding of God’s truth (John 14:6), fruitfulness and effectiveness in our Christian life (John 15:1). ‘We can go through times without food, with an uncertainty of our future, even with a family crisis, but with Jesus in our lives, we will have the peace that passes all understanding,’ he encouraged.
Too often, we focus on the things we can get from God rather than what we already have in Him. Right after the promises given to him in Genesis 15:1, Abraham questioned on what God could give him since he had no heir (v2-3). The Lord took him out of his tent and told him to count the stars. The stars were so numerous they were uncountable. So shall the number of Abraham’s heir be.
It seemed impossible to human reasoning, but Abraham believed in the Lord, and God credited it to him as righteousness. And just like with Noah and the rainbow, God initiated and established a covenant with Abraham through the stars. Every time Abraham looked up at the stars, he would remember the promise until it finally came to pass. God’s grace and Abraham’s faith were both at work.
God never changes. He still responds to our faith in Him. God is pleased when we trust and believe in Him, and faith in Him has outcomes and results. In response to Abraham’s faith, the Lord declared that Abraham was now righteous and justified in His sight.
‘Through faith in Christ, God credits us too with righteousness,’ Pr Ramesh shared. ‘And not only that, His promises are guaranteed.’ We can see how seriously God treats His promises through the way He established His covenant with Abraham.
Genesis 15: 9-10
9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.
Back in the day, whenever the parties on two sides did this, they were signifying a binding vow (they would walk between the pieces with the understanding that they would end up like the beasts that had been torn in two if they were to fail in their part of responsibility within that contract).
After this, we see that Abraham waited on the Lord’s promise. Vultures came on the carcasses, but Abraham was keeping watch, and he chased the vultures away. Pr Ramesh shared that oftentimes when we are waiting on God’s promises, doubts will come like those vultures and try to devour our trust and everything that we hold on to in Him.
‘Just like Abraham, we need to have a good understanding of who God is. We need to have an understanding of His faithfulness. We need to know how to say “I know Whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted Him to until that day (2 Timothy 1:12)”. We need to have the kind of confidence Abraham did,’ Pr Ramesh exhorted.
As the sun was setting, God sent Abraham into a deep sleep (Genesis 15:12). This last part of the covenant, God would do alone while Abraham rested. Pr Ramesh conveyed that it is not through our own efforts or watchfulness that God’s covenants and promises are fulfilled. They are fulfilled because of who He is and His faithfulness. God works His promises to fulfillment. And all we need to do is to believe. As is stated in Scripture, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and believe in Him, and all these things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33)”.
While Abraham slept, God revealed to Abraham the prophecy about the future. Abraham’s descendants would see God’s promises fulfilled in time to come.
Genesis 15: 13-16
Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When Abraham woke, he saw God’s presence passing between the pieces, and He was passing through alone. God was taking all the responsibility of the covenant off Abraham and unto Himself!
Genesis 15:17
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
Regardless of whatever Abraham may or would do in the future, God sealed the covenant.
Genesis 15:18-21
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
Reading more deeply about the Abrahamic covenant, the magnitude of God’s grace stands out so clearly that it astounds. When God makes a covenant with us, we can trust Him to keep to that covenant, and He will never break His covenant with us (Judges 2:1). Whenever we go through times when faith seems difficult, God carries and sustains us, and it is His work that brings us through.
This is an adaptation and abridgment of the message shared by Pr Ramesh Kumar at Destiny C3 on the 12th of February 2023. For the original full message, you may access the video sermon at https://youtu.be/x7aaY3EBgMA
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