The Relentless Pursuit of God Genesis 15:1-6

is that God is the initiator of our faith, not us. God pursues us, and we are the recipients of His kindness in pursuing us.

There is a theological term for this, and that is known as grace. God pursues us when we do not deserve it, since we come into this world as sinners.

The beginning of our relationship with God is not as though we pursue God and He attaches

Himself to us. No, it's the other way around. Jesus said in John 15, 16,

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.

God is the initiator of our relationship with Him, not us. We have already seen this in our sermon series through Genesis, as we have seen

God call Abram to follow Him. Abram listened and put his faith in the

Lord. We are going to see in our sermon today God's pursuit of Abram and Abram's response of faith.

In our text today is Genesis 15, verses 1 -6, and this sermon today is setting the table for the

Abrahamic Covenant, and we are going to look at that next week. The Abrahamic Covenant is one of the most significant covenants in all the

Bible, so today is really kind of the building block for that, and we are going to see the relentless pursuit of God in our sermon today, as He pursues this man that He has called.

So what I am going to do today is read these six verses, Genesis 15, verses 1 -6, and I encourage you as always to follow along with me.

If you are using a red Bible, in the pews it is on page 12, and as I read this, we are going to dig in and find the treasures that are here in this passage, so I am going to read and then we are going to jump in and find these.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not,

Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said,

O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is

Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.

And behold, the word of 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 stars. 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.

Our big idea today, our proposition is the Lord initiates the relationship between him and believers.

The Lord initiates the relationship between him and believers, and we are going to see two ways how.

The first way how is by reaffirming his promise to Abram, and we are going to see this in verses one through five, and then we are going to take the time in verse six to dig into what it means to believe in the

Lord and how that works. The last two weeks, we saw the story of Abram's return home from the defeat of the kings of the north.

On his journey home, two kings greeted him, the king of Sodom and the king of Salem. The king of Sodom was a wicked king who did not give

Abram the honor he was due, while the king of Salem was a righteous king who gave

Abram honor by providing a meal and giving him a blessing. Last week, we looked at the identity of the mystery man,

Melchizedek, and we solved the mystery, right? And what we learned is that Melchizedek was not an angel or the pre -incarnate

Christ, but rather a priest who predated the Old Testament priesthood by about 500 years.

The similarities between Melchizedek and Christ are that they both are priest kings, they both received their priesthood not from family heritage, but from direct appointment by God.

And just as no one was listed as becoming priest after Melchizedek, so no priest comes after Christ, since Jesus is the eternal high priest who forever intercedes for us so that we can forever dwell in the presence of God.

Today, we pick up after Abram's return home from battle. And we already saw this in verse one.

In verse one of Genesis 15, we read, after these things, this tells us where we came from and where we are going.

These words are important to understand the setting of where we are today. In the previous narrative,

Abram said that he refused to have any help from the king of Sodom.

You can probably remember back to that. Abram refused to be indebted to him.

And Abram demonstrated trust in the Lord because the Lord was taking care of him. The Lord had already provided for Abram materially, as Genesis 13, 2 says.

Abram was a wealthy man. Furthermore, Abram knew the promises that the Lord had made to him, that he would have offspring, that he would have a nation, that he would have land.

There was no reason for Abram to be unnecessarily indebted to the king of Sodom.

And I made the application last week that there is no reason for us to be unnecessarily indebted to anybody, right?

Because the Lord provides for us. Now, the setting where we are today is a good time for the

Lord to remind Abram of these promises. So the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

As a verse, it says here, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. And it says to fear, and he says to fear not.

So Abram has a vision. What is a vision? You hear this word thrown around sometimes, it's a good time to address this.

What is a vision? A vision is where you are taken from where you are, not bodily, but spiritually, and you receive a message in a different place.

If you read Revelation, John, the apostle John, was taken to a different place, right?

And the Lord gave him a vision. That would be an example of a vision, and that's what's happening to Abram right here.

The Lord tells Abram to fear not. You have to remember,

Abram came from a situation where he was feeling really good about himself. The kings of the north, from north to south, conquered all of these peoples, and now

Abram takes his men, and with the help of the Lord, was able to defeat these powerful kings of the north.

So he's feeling really good about himself at this point. So why in the world is the Lord saying to him here, fear not?

Well, the second half of the verse tells us the answer. The second half of verse one, it says,

Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.

The ESV reads, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. I just read that.

And the New King James Version reads, I am your shield. Your exceedingly great reward.

I know that Mark uses the New King James, you probably see that right now. Now there really isn't a significant difference in what this is saying.

Either one can be right, because the Hebrew words shield and reward are very similar. And I'll explain that in the next few verses, how this is so.

And what we'll see is that at this point, Abram did not receive any promises from the

Lord. Abram explains his concern in the next two verses.

Okay, so the Lord makes all these promises to him, and he hasn't received them yet. He's just trusting in faith that the Lord is going to deliver.

Now, verses two and three, he says, This is depressing.

He's thinking, I'm old. More importantly, my wife is old. I can't have children.

This is impossible. So this is kind of a depressing point here. And Abram is wondering if God's promise of offspring that he made in Genesis 12, seven is going to be his own biological child, or if his servant

Eliezer of Damascus is going to be the one through whom God is going to accomplish this.

So is he thinking, did I misunderstand the promise? Is it going to be my servant? Because I thought you said it's going to be my son from my own seed.

Now, by saying these words shield and help, these words are similar.

He said, he said, I'll be your shield. I'll be your I'll be your help. They're similar sounding words in Hebrew.

Now, this suggests the author is getting after the same idea by using these two terms closely together.

He says, I will be your shield. I will be your reward. By saying shield and help, the author,

Moses, is stressing that the Lord, through his protection of Abram and his descendants, is going to bring about this reward.

The Lord is going to see to it that Abram has offspring and that this offspring is successful in attaining the promised land.

We have to remember the promises again, the Lord promised the Abrams offspring would attain the land, this land that was occupied by the

Canaanites. And so in order to attain the land,

Abram and his descendants needed the Lord's provision and help. And so he says, I am your shield.

Your reward shall be very great. The Lord is the one who is going to bring about this reward through his provision.

So that's what the Lord's getting after here by saying this. I am your shield. I am your reward.

And the Lord declares this in the following verse, in verse four, says, and behold, the word of the

Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir. This is the second time the

Lord declared a word to Abram. The first one we just saw in verse one. We can assume that Abram is still having this vision as the

Lord declares this to him. The Lord delivers these comforting words to Abram that he will have a son.

The servants of his household were not going to be the heir. That's typically how it worked in ancient times.

If you didn't have a biological son, it would go to a servant that you had or someone else in your household.

But not in this case, Abram will have a child. What's fascinating is that the father of America, George Washington, never had children himself.

He and his wife were always unable to bear children. And to the latter years of his life, it always really bothered him that he was never able to have a child.

And we experience this heartache in our lives, too. You may have experienced it yourself or you know someone who has experienced the inability to have to have your own children.

You can put yourself in Abram's shoes and say right shoes and and feel the pain that they had.

They're old here and they've never had their own children. And when we when he heard these words, when

Abram heard these words from the Lord, it would have brought him tremendous comfort.

Tremendous comfort. Tremendous joy. Then Abram said.

Sorry, then God said, your offspring will not be one. It will be many. This is a precise and he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven, look toward the sky and number the stars if you are able to number them.

Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. At this point, Abram had no children.

And he says, you're not only going to have one child, you're going to have lots of children, too many to count.

The Lord demonstrates this innumerable number by providing the illustration of the night sky.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, my brother and I, we had a friend who lived up in Aiken, Minnesota, which is north of Lake Mille Lacs, kind of up in northern

Minnesota. And he lived in this town of a couple thousand people. And what we would do as we spent the night there is we would drive a few miles north of town and we would we would drive down the road and we pull off on a side road and we parked the car on the side of the road and we had blankets.

We put we laid out the blankets on the road and we actually laid in the middle of the road. Now, a few times the cars came by and we had to move and get up, obviously.

But it was incredible to see the stars at night. And one night we saw northern lights and and it was beautiful.

And my brother and I were from the cities. We didn't we obviously we couldn't see the stars. We didn't even know there were stars.

Right. But one thing that Brianna and I love about living here is you can actually see the stars at night and the lights at KJ's aren't bright enough for us to not be able to see the stars or the town hall.

You walk outside, you can look up and you can see the beauty of the night sky. And so wherever Abram was at this point, he's able to look up at the night sky and see all of these stars.

And the Lord is saying to him, this is what your offspring is going to be like. You're not just going to have one child. You're going to have all of these children.

What a legacy Abram is going to have through this countless offspring. And not only is the nation of Israel going to come from him, the nation of Israel would be millions.

So millions of offspring. But the Apostle Paul points out in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 that God is not just referring to physical offspring when he makes this promise, but also spiritual offspring.

So as Abram looks at the stars in the heavens, we as followers of Jesus Christ are also included in this countless number.

OK, so it's not just millions, it's billions of people over time are considered the offspring of Abram.

And maybe you could think back to Sunday school or Father Abraham and many sons, many sons had

Father Abraham. I am one of them. And so are you. So let's just praise the

Lord right. That's the first time I've ever sang in a sermon. And it's probably going to be the last.

OK, so maybe we should have recorded it today. OK, so so the

Lord reaffirms this promise to Abram. Remember, he made these promises before and now he's reminding him of these promises, and so he does to us.

All these promises in scripture are to us, too. And any time we read the Bible, these promises are from the

Lord are being reaffirmed to us. So this is the first way. How the Lord initiates the relationship between him and believers by reaffirming his promise to Abram.

The second way how the Lord initiates the relationship between him and believers is by calling Abram to receive his righteousness by faith in his promises.

We're going to look at verse six here. By calling Abram to receive his righteousness by faith in his in his promises, the

Lord makes this wonderful promise to Abram that he is going to have all of this offspring.

And verse six tells us Abram's response and his response shows his relationship with God.

This is what verse six says. And he, Abram, believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

You might wonder, is this Abram's conversion? We've already spent three chapters seeing the relationship between Abram and the

Lord. And what we have seen in that time is that Abram has already demonstrated faith in God.

In the beginning of chapter 12, the Lord commanded Abram to leave his homeland to go to a place he had never been.

Abram listened and he went. And what do we call this? We call this faith. So he demonstrated faith earlier.

Another example of Abram's faith demonstrated in the past would be the last narrative where Abram refused to receive possessions from the king of Sodom.

He refused to be indebted to him. This showed his trust in the Lord. So we saw faith demonstrated there.

So what we have in verse six is not a conversion. The beginning of his faith in the

Lord may have been at the beginning of chapter 12 when he left the land that he knew to go to a land that he did not know that that probably was the point where he became a believer in the one true

God. So what do we have here in Genesis 15 and 6? Genesis 15 is the most important chapter when we talk about the narrative between God and Abram.

This chapter is building up to the eternal covenant, the Abrahamic covenant that the Lord makes with Abram.

Now, the author, who I believe to be Moses, decides to insert the nature of faith in this most crucial account between God and Abram.

The word that the Hebrew word used for believe means to place trust or confidence in another.

So Abram is placing his confidence in the Lord and he trusts in the present what the

Lord is going to do in the future. The Hebrew construction here with the word believe demonstrates a continuing faith that started in the past.

Now, people who know Hebrew as they're reading this, it catches them by surprise because the tense here is a perfect tense, which probably means nothing to you.

But what that means is it's talking about something that happened in the past and continues in the present and continues on in the future.

And so so the author includes this perfect tense for the word believe here because he's showing people that this isn't the beginning of his faith.

This is this is the continuing of his faith. He's digging his heels in and he's continuing his trust in the

Lord. That's what Abram does. And that's what all true believers do. You believe when you when you first are saved and then you continue to believe through your whole walk with the

Lord, even though the trials come, you continue to say, Lord, I trust in you.

Now, the Lord is a God who makes promises and keeps them. Abram knows about the

Lord's trustworthy character and he believes in him. And by inserting Abram's faith here, the author is emphasizing

Abram's faith at this crucial moment in the life of Abram. And that crucial moment is the upcoming official ratification of the

Abrahamic covenant. And that's what we're going to look at next week. But he's inserting it here just to show this is the most significant moment in Abram's journey with God.

And he has faith in the Lord in this significant time, the significant event. Now, the next important part we see is the

Lord's response to Abram's faith. We saw this here at the end of verse six, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

The ESV, which is the version I'm using in the version that the Red Bibles are in, says counted, but you can also use the words credited or reckoned.

When you count, credit or reckon, you assign value to something. In this instance, the

Lord is assigning to Abram the value of righteousness for his faith. What is interesting is that the word count is used twice in this passage.

The first time it is used is for counting stars. Remember, the Lord tells Abram, look up at heaven and count the stars.

The second time the Lord uses it is to count Abram's faith as righteousness. And actually, in Genesis 13, 16, he doesn't just say count the stars.

He says count the dust of the earth. All right. Obviously, if you go to Sconewood and we count the sand over there, it's going to take a while, right?

The Lord is saying there's going to be a lot of offspring. That's the point he's making. But here, the word count is not used that way.

He's saying, OK, count the stars. Yeah, but now he's saying, you know, he's assigning value. His righteousness is counted.

The Lord's righteousness is counted to him. And so one author said it nicely here. The two ways that counting is used in this verse is that Abram believed in the counting promises of 13, 16 and 15, four and five.

And conversely, the Lord counted his faith. So Abram believes in the counting promises and the

Lord counts his faith as righteousness. And when we see the word righteous show up, this can also be used in two different ways.

Number one is to call someone righteous when they meet a standard. Like if someone were to help the poor, we would say that person did a righteous deed.

In Genesis 6, 9, Noah was called righteous because he did righteous deeds. He lived a life that conformed to the standards set by God.

And as he stood out from the sinful world around him, he was considered righteous. The second way the term is used in the

Old Testament is to declare righteous. This is in a legal sense. The judge would declare someone innocent or guilty in the court of law.

It's used this way in Deuteronomy 25, 1. And actually,

I'll read that real quick here. If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

So the word innocent there is the same word for righteous used here in Genesis 15, 6.

So we see there in Deuteronomy 25, 1, an example of righteous being used in the context of the court of law.

In our passage here, that's how it's being used. It's a court language. It's a judgment, forensic language that we see here.

It's used in a legal sense. And some Jewish interpreters have mistakenly concluded that God crediting

Abram is righteous and making this covenant with him is because Abram was righteous.

He did righteous deeds. And so God counts him righteous because he does righteous deeds. But that's not what this is saying.

As if the Lord somehow reacts to his good deeds by calling him righteous and making a covenant with him. That's not what's happening.

We haven't seen that in the whole narrative so far. Remember, I mentioned God pursues us.

We don't pursue him. God is the initiator of everything. And Abram responds to God in faith.

God is the initiator. We are greatly helped by the New Testament to prove the accuracy of this interpretation.

We were helped last week when we looked at Melchizedek and the author of Hebrews showed us the significance of the man

Melchizedek. Today, we are helped by the apostle Paul, who, by the way, was a Jew who knew the

Hebrew language very, very well. So he would look at this passage and he would give us the correct understanding of what this means.

And of course, he's inspired by the Holy Spirit, too. And that helps. But Paul quotes Genesis 15, 6 in two places,

Romans 4, 3. And Galatians 3, 6. In Romans 4, 3, we're going to look at that here in a second.

He quotes this verse and also in Galatians. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read these two verses in Romans and in Galatians and the context surrounding them.

And what you're going to see is how clear the Bible is on the issue of salvation. Is salvation by works or is it by grace through faith?

That's the issue here. Is it by works or grace through faith? Romans 4, 1 through 5.

I'm going to read here in this. This is I already read this for the call to worship, but we'll see it again. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, his wages are counted as a gift, are counted not as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

And then he quotes Psalm 32 where David says, he does not count my sins against me.

Okay, so we see there, Paul makes it crystal clear that salvation is not by works, right?

Because then we have something to boast about. It's by grace. And he does the same thing in Galatians chapter 3, verses 6 through 9.

This is what he says. But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?

That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath to us? I speak in a human way. By no means, for then how could

God judge the world? But if through my lie,

God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned? Actually, you know what? I think I just read the wrong verse.

Okay, sometimes that happens. Yeah, so I don't know why

I did that. But the point is, you're counted righteous, okay?

Um, you know the mistake I made? Okay, sometimes you make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes.

I just made a mistake. I just read Romans 3, okay? And not

Galatians 3. Okay, so now I have the reference right. We're going to get this right. Galatians 3, 6 through 9.

Okay, so just as Abram believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abram saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abram, the man of faith. Okay, so we see

Paul say it in Romans and now we see him say it in Galatians. So Abram was justified or counted righteous by faith and not by his works.

Abram lived about 4 ,000 years ago. And what can we conclude from this?

Salvation has always been by grace and not by works. The object of one's faith has changed because obviously in the

Old Testament, they couldn't believe in Jesus. Jesus was not yet on the scene. So they believed in the one true God and it was counted to them as righteousness.

Today, now that Jesus has come, he came 2 ,000 years ago. We believe in Jesus and it's counted to us as righteousness.

We are saved by grace through faith. And the misunderstanding of salvation goes back thousands of years, pretty much from the beginning of history.

What's fascinating is that the Christian faith is unique from all other religions. If you look at any other religion, it's by works.

You can take this to the bank. If you study any other religion, you're going to see you earn God's favor. You go to heaven by your righteous deeds.

The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that Jesus accomplished your salvation for you. And so when you believe in him, then you are saved and then you are made right with God.

And even the Jews did this. Remember, this hasn't changed. The Old Testament and New Testament, they're united.

But even Jews misunderstood the Old Testament and they understood salvation as by works.

Old Testament saints were saved by Christ. Their salvation was pending on him. When he came, he saved them and they could not directly believe in him, of course, because he wasn't on the scene yet.

But they trusted in the one true God and we do too. As we believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in the

Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. We believe in the triune God. Now, you may ask, what role do works have?

Can we just coast to heaven? Can we just believe and just kind of do whatever we want and we'll be OK? The answer is no.

All true believers have good works. And the Apostle James, in his book, in the back of the

Bible, stresses this point. He quotes Genesis 15, 6 also. And what's interesting is that when you read it, it sounds like a contradiction to what

Paul said. It sounds like he's saying you're saved by works. But we have to understand that that's not what he's saying.

If you go to James chapter 2, verses 21 through 24, this is what he says.

This is at the back of it. You don't have to turn there. I'm going to turn there. It's at the back of the Bible in James 2, verses 21 through 24.

He says, was that Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered up his son

Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works.

And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

And he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

All right. So James stresses here that true faith is always accompanied by works.

The ground of your salvation is 100 % Jesus, his death on the cross for your sin to his victorious resurrection.

That's the grounds of your salvation. But the spirit generated works that come from that is the evidence of your salvation.

It's not the grounds. It's the evidence. It's going to be there if you have been saved.

So your works do not earn your salvation. They prove your salvation. And you are counted righteous by faith just as Abram was.

Your salvation is by grace through faith alone. As Abram was credited with the righteousness of God, so are you.

All right. Isn't that a beautiful treasure from scripture? We see how that all that works out. So the second way how the

Lord initiates the relationship between him and believers is by calling Abram to receive his righteousness by faith in his promises.

So what we've seen today, our big idea and the following main points is the Lord initiates the relationship between him and believers.

And we've seen this by two ways. How by reaffirming his promise to Abram and by calling

Abram to receive his righteousness by faith in his promises. And we know from scripture that Abram was a true believer in God.

And he is used as an example for people of faith. He is the example because he shows us how one becomes a true believer in God through faith.

And he shows us that true believers live a life full of good works. The sermon today has been building us up to this significant covenant that God makes with this faithful man.

And we're going to look at this covenant next week. And one point I want to stress as we close is that God does not make this covenant with Abram because of his good deeds, right?

God is pursuing Abram. And that's what is bringing about this covenant.

It's the Lord's initiation. He chose this man and now he chooses to bless him through what is called the

Abrahamic covenant. And I look forward to opening up that with you next week.

Let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you,

Lord, for your precious word. Lord, we thank you that it's not up to the messenger to produce faith in people.

It's not up to the messenger, Lord, to use manipulation, Lord, to persuade people to follow

Christ. It's up to the messenger to declare the word of God. And Lord, I did that today.

And I pray that you would use this to transform people in this church and not just in this church, but in the surrounding community.

That as we study the word of God, as the word of God is proclaimed, it has the power to change lives.

That's what we believe, Lord. And may you do that, Lord. The seeds have been planted and we pray,

Lord, that it would be watered and that you would produce this in the people of God and encourage your people,

Lord, that they are saved, not because of their works, but because of their faith in the finished work of Christ.