SERMON: An Abrahamic Adventus

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you story of Abraham begins in a place where life kind of made sense

Ur of the Chaldeans was not a wandering camp on the edge of civilization

It wasn't a backwoods II sort of place. Actually. It was a thriving bustling metropolis in the ancient world

It was a it was a place baked With the Sun yes, but it had temples rising confidently into the sky it had industry

It had trade routes humming with traffic and promise. It was a place with family land established gods familiar rhythms and a future that could be easily predicted and Abram belong there.

He knew the roads. He knew the seasons. He knew what life was going to be like probably thought that there was nothing at all that was going to interrupt the

Hum and drum of everyday life and er and yet God did interrupt it

Not with Abraham's plan But with the command and not even with a map but with just the summons

God spoke into the middle of his life and he told him to leave everything that he had behind all of the

Metropolitan blessings and and life that he had accumulated and to walk into the midst of uncertainty

To leave his country to leave his relatives to leave his father's home and to walk towards the land that the

Lord God would show him Later No destination was named on that day

No timeline was offered the promise was naked of any details and heavy with consequences.

It was To say the least an act of faith God said to him

I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and in you all of the families of the earth to be blessed

He said that before Abraham had any children and Abraham at this time known as Abram for his part he obeyed

But obedience could not have felt heroic in that moment.

It must have felt even a little bit disorienting Every mile away from Earl was a mile deeper into the uncertainty

Every step into the wilderness carried him further away from what he knew and closer to what he could not have known

What he could not see with his own eyes He gathered up his household He loaded his animals and he began the long walk into the future that existed only in the mind of God because he had never seen it

They reached the land, but they did not receive it Abram walked up and down the valleys in the hills.

He built altars to God there He worshipped this God there, but he owned nothing there

He lived in tents like a nomadic wanderer going from place to place Observing the land that God had promised him but not yet having the deed

The land was real but the possession of it remained distant the promise was inheritance, but the reality was sojourner and in that space between what

God had said and what Abraham could see and taste and touch

With his own mind and that in the gap between those two realities is where Abraham was called to have great faith and Not just for a little time either years passed seasons turned calendars flipped and His tent remained quiet He was promised that he was gonna have a child who was gonna end up blessing the entire world and Sarah At the time known as Sarah I later to become known as Sarah her body aged beneath the weight of years

Never tasting the promise at least not in a time that Abraham could have even considered

Each year passed without a child which made the future feel more and more and more remote more

Theoretical and even more painful God had spoken. Yes But nothing was changing in Abraham's life

And when God finally did speak again Abraham could no longer keep the ache inside of his bones.

He said Oh Lord God What will you give me? Since I remain childless because that's kind of the point

The promise is dependent upon at least one child if you're gonna have children

That bless the world that take over the world This was an honest question from Abraham it was the voice of a man who had been waiting decades at this point

To see any sign whatsoever that the promises of God were going to come true And I want you to notice how

Abraham answered he took him outside and he lifted up his eyes towards heaven and He said

Abraham look at the sky Count the stars if you were able to so shall your descendants be

This is the first time Abraham's heard from God in years and Now God is asking him in his old age to look at the sky

By the way, the sky in the Middle East you can see more stars than you can hear in the

Western world Maybe it's pollution. Maybe it's whatever else. Maybe there's not that many streetlights. I've been in the

Middle East. There's a lot of stars It's disorienting to count them. I read this verse in Iraq and thought hey

I want to see if I can try to count the stars you can't you lose track of where you're at in the sky and you start over and over and over again and That's just what you can see with the naked eye

The text tells us. However that Abraham when this was told to him he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness

But that belief did not expedite the timeline of God's plan Abram went back into his tent

Sarah. I was still barren stars remained distant and the waiting continued eventually

Abraham asks another question after he waits another long period of time God How can I know for sure that you're really gonna do this?

Since nothing has happened in a decade since the last time I talked to you and then

God answered at that point with blood Animals were brought in front of God the animals were cut in half the pieces were laid one side to the other forming a kind of corridor of blood and death

Vultures were circling the Sun began to set darkness fell heavy and thick and you may think this is weird.

Yeah, it is weird to us but in the ancient world in those times if you were a great and mighty king and you wanted to make a

Promise of fidelity to a lower peasant person you would cut the animals in half and you would you would cut them

Asymmetrically down the middle and you would divide them and lay them on either side and you would say walk through Those animals with me and if I fail to take care of you, and if you fail to give me all of your allegiance

Then may we be ripped apart just like these animals. That was the ceremony

This was a ceremony that was Somewhat common it was over.

It was a little dramatic It was very bloody It was a visceral picture of what would happen if you broke your promise that you'd be ripped apart

But right in the middle of this scene something truly spectacular happens

The Bible says that God put Abram or put yeah put

Abram into a deep sleep Instead of making Abram walk through the severed animal parts with God God wakes

Adam up from this deep sleep and shows him that he alone is the one who walked through it

That he alone was going to be the one who would uphold the covenant that he alone was going to be the one to take the punishments if the punishments were delved out and I think it's probably one of the greatest pictures of the gospel and all of the

Bible Where the smoke and fire pot walk through these severed bodies and Abraham wakes up still with the sleepy in his eye gasping at the

Sign that he just saw in front of him. It's a strange and it's very peculiar scene

There's nothing like it anywhere else in the Bible but I think that it will show us one of the most beautiful glimpses of the gospel as we look into What this

Abrahamic Covenant is now you'll remember in the last couple weeks We've been talking about what are the covenants the

Adamic Covenant and the Noahic Covenant now? We're at the Abrahamic Covenant and what

I want us to see here today through Abraham's Covenant Is that it's unique and yet it's also the same

And what I want us to see is is that Abraham waits years and years and years and years

Before he finally is granted a child after this cutting ceremony. There's another cutting ceremony

This one a little closer to Abraham's body when he's cut through circumcision and still no child

Later God shows up again has a meal with Abraham still no child at this point

Sarah is incredulous and she laughs God calls her out on it But it was 20 something years of promises made and no promises being delivered and Abraham believed

God and it was counted to him as righteousness And what I want you to see here today is

That this is the exact same scene that we're all rehearsing right now in this season called

Advent like Abraham We're waiting for the miraculous child to be born we're waiting on Christmas morning for the birth of Christ and We're waiting for the hope that's being promised to Abraham as we will see as we continue

So if you will turn with me actually, I like last week don't turn with me because I'm gonna read a lot of different verses

I'm gonna read verses that are kind of all over the place that described the Abrahamic Covenant We're gonna walk through the

Abrahamic Covenant together I'm gonna show how this covenant relates to Advent and Christmas and then at the end

I Pray that it will be of a great encouragement to you. So I will begin with Genesis 12 1 through 3

This is where the Abrahamic Covenant begins now the Lord said to Abram go forth from your country and your relatives and your father's house to the land which

I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and so shall and so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and the ones who curses you

I will curse and In you all of the families of the earth we blessed. He has no son here

Genesis 15 1 through 6 after these things that the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision saying do not fear

Abram I'm a shield to you Your reward shall be very great and Abraham said

Oh Lord God what will you give me since I'm childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus and Abram said since you have given no offspring to me one born in my house is my heir

Then behold the word of the Lord came to him saying this man shall not be your heir But one who will come forth from your own body

He shall be your heir and He took him outside and said now look to the heavens and count the stars if you were able to count them and he said

To him so shall your descendants be Then he believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness

Later in that same chapter It came about when the Sun had set that it was very dark and behold

There appeared a smoking oven and oven and a flaming torch which passed between the pieces on that day the

Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your descendants I Have given this land forever from the

River of Egypt as far as the Great River the River Euphrates That's that's probably a funny passage to Abram to your descendants

You have to keep going Genesis 17 1 through 8 now when

Abraham was 99 years old The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him.

I am God Almighty Walk before me and be blameless.

I Will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly

Abram fell on his face and this was not because he was 99 years old and lost his cane Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying asked for me behold

My covenant is with you and you will be the father of a multitude of nations

No longer shall your name be called Abram But your name shall be

Abraham for I have made you father of a multitude of nations and I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come forth from you and I will establish my

Covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant

To be God to you and to your descendants after you I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of Your sojournings and all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their

God real quick as we continue have you ever met someone who told you like a

Pretty big promise and then when it didn't come true. They amped it up And then

I know it's gonna be even better than that this time It's gonna have this and it's gonna have this and you're like, oh my goodness

It only you can only do that a couple times before you're like, I've seen no proof of anything and all you're doing is ratcheting it up Abraham could have been that way

But he believes God he believes the character of this God and God is counting it and crediting it to Abram his righteousness later on in that chapter verse 10 and 11

This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you every male among you shall be circumcised

There are no males yet and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you and Then shortly after this a year later after Genesis 18.

The Sun is born Genesis 22 is sort of the ending chapter of the

Development of the Abrahamic Covenant verses 17 through 18 says this indeed. The child has been born at this point

I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore and Your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed

Because you have obeyed my voice Let's pray Lord.

We thank you Lord we thank you that we know that Abraham who was an idol worshiper in her

Who was called out of that great city in order to live in a land of sojourning?

To be told promises that he would never see to be given even a roadmap for what the end of the world would look like and he would never even see the first glimmer of how it would come to be and Yet Lord, he believed

Lord we thank you for the faith of Abraham Lord we thank you that the spirit that you provided unto our our father

Abraham to help him believe and Lord, we thank you that we now as Christians are

Inheritors of the great promises that you gave to Abraham through your son Jesus Christ Lord help us to see how all of these things come together today in Jesus name.

Amen If Christmas for you begins in Bethlehem, then you are arriving at the scene a little too late

The Nativity does not just happen out of thin air It rises up out of a very long and deliberate history a history that God himself authored and paced and guarded that Unfolds itself all throughout the

Old Testament and in this way the child in the manger is the visible Arrival of a promise that was spoken centuries earlier to Abraham a man who stood beneath the stars and was told to count them and he could not to understand

Advent rightly to understand Christmas rightly we must not see

Christmas as or the incarnation as God's intrusion into a world as a rescue plan

Where God is reacting only to the sin of man, but we must also see it as the culmination of thousands of years of history and promises where God has been

Telling his people to wait patiently for the coming of this child and the

Abrahamic Covenant matters to us when it comes to Christmas because Adam was given the world and lost it

Noah was regiven the world and could not preserve it But in Abraham, we are seeing that God is doing something altogether different He is being given the world by a future promise of a future son who will succeed where all of his ancestors failed

Abraham is given the world by promise a Promise that God refuses to hurry up in bringing to fulfillment a

Promise that God advances not through immediacy, but by centuries upon centuries upon centuries of patience in Order to teach his people to live faithfully in the promises of God in order to teach his people to live between the promise and the fulfillment and that is the hope of Advent and That's the hope that we wait in today

Having been promised the whole world in Christ and yet living in a world that is not fully surrendered to him.

We wait We wait as well for the promises of God to be true and to find their yes and amen in the future when the entire world is filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the water covers the sea

Sander recently told me that he thinks that that's my favorite verse because I say it all the time. Maybe he's right

But it's true The world will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the water covers the sea and you and I we wait and we participate until it comes to be

Like Abraham, we're promised a future that we're not gonna live long enough to see in full like Abraham We've been given a land that we are not going to fully possess

And like Abraham God is teaching us his people how to live by faith and not by sight how to look at a world around us that is still broken and to Cling to God's promises instead of what we see

Remember Abraham was promised a child and he didn't see that child for decades And yet he held to the promises of God you and I've been told that Christ rules the world and yet we see so much sin brokenness, will we root our faith in what we see or Will we root our faith in what

God has promised? That is what Abraham shows us

That is why Abraham matters this Christmas That is why the Abrahamic Covenant means so much to us because it teaches us how to wait even when we don't see the fulfillment coming

Now in order to understand this even more deeply I want us to do a couple things today

I Want us to look at Abraham's covenant and I want us to see how

Abraham is an Adam 3 .0 Yes last week.

We saw how Noah was a type of Adam and a type of Christ this week We're gonna see how Abraham is another type of Adam.

He's an Adam 3 .0. He's a reboot But we're also going to see as we look through the seven conditions of the

Abrahamic Covenant Because every covenant has seven different conditions to it what we're going to see as a true child of Abraham is coming

Just like a true child is going to be born to Eve just like Jesus is going to be the true ark on which we are saved

Abraham's seed Will be the one who saves the world and we'll see all of those things So let's start with how

Adam or how Abraham is an Adam 3 .0. I Love this stuff.

I nerd out on this stuff. I hope you do too because this is my this some of my favorite things I'm like, oh for instance

Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, right and He was appointed covenant head over humanity

While Abraham was called out of the dusty city of Ur and he was appointed head over a new people

In both cases both men contributed nothing their origination proceeded forth from the mouth of God both men were called out of the dust and then

Created a new by the breath of God Adam was taken out of the dust He was placed into a garden paradise teeming with life and fruitfulness

Abraham was taken out of the dusty city of Ur and he was placed into a land flowing with milk and honey which you don't have to be a scholar of poetry to realize that he's being brought into a garden land if The land is flowing with milk and honey and it's teeming with all kinds of life.

It's a new garden Adam walked among the trees of the

Garden of Eden and God speaks with him among the trees Abraham walks among the trees at the

Oaks of Mamre and God speaks to him at the trees Adam received the command to be blameless before the

Lord Abraham receives the command to walk blamelessly before God Adam was blessed so that his family could spread out and take over the entire world from Eden to the entire earth

Abraham is blessed in Genesis 12 and the promises that his family would bless the entire world and every family on earth

Adam was warned that his disobedience would bring death upon him and his household Abraham was warned that covenant breaking would lead him and his people to be cut off Covenant headship

Still carries household consequences. Adam was commanded to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth

Abraham has promised descendants like the dust and the stars if you're fruitful and you multiply and you spread out to the ends of the earth

Your progeny will be like the sand of the seashore. He is being promised the same things as Adam Adam was given dominion over the entire world and God charged him to rule over it

Abraham is to promise dominion over the nations Did you notice that it says that Kings are gonna come from Abraham rulers are gonna come from Abraham?

Abraham is being promised dominion over the entire earth to rule over it subdue it and make it obey

God This one's fun Adam is put into a deep sleep.

Remember the best moment of his life He has this great sleep and then God crafts from his side a bride and he wakes up and he sees this beautiful bride that God had cut him to make in That cutting ceremony that I talked about earlier where the animals were cut in two

Do you know the word that's used for Abraham when he's put into a deep sleep? It's the exact same word that's used of Adam when

Adam is put into a deep sleep So Abraham in a sense is being Decreated for a moment so that from his own body

He will see the redemption that comes to him through the cutting and through the blood

It's the exact same thing that happens to Adam Adam was wedded to a woman made of his own flesh.

Abraham was wedded to a woman after his own bloodline and All of this is not just rep

Repetition for the sake of repetition. This is what covenant theologians call covenant recapitulations because it's one covenant being administered by Different men who look alike talk alike think alike and have on similar a lot of similar things happening to them

Because God is trying to show us that the covenant can only be held by one man

Jesus Christ and all of the other covenant heads, although they are similar They all fail in the same ways

The first Adam fail and he lost the world the second

Adam 2 .0 named Noah Also fell and the world became polluted again the third reboot with this

Adam 3 .0 named Abraham also fails and also falls short and Also does not deserve the grand promises that God gives him

The point is simple in this God is not in heaven choosing men because he thinks

I think one of them might succeed. I Think if Abrahams got a good shot

It's it's not like fantasy football where he's like, yeah, he's gonna bring me the trophy this year He's not

Christian McCaffrey the point is simple God is picking these men because they cannot succeed but what they will succeed in is they will point to the need for a

Savior and They will point to the need that we need a better covenant head And as you noticed here

Adam and Abraham look a lot alike on purpose Because both of them are going to point forward to the same man

And if they both point forward to the same man, they're gonna share a lot of so limit similarities Now, let's look at the seven aspects of the covenant

Covenant headship Adam was the head of his covenant. Abraham is not merely a participant in his covenant

He's the head of it for instance. Oh, and I think this is also fascinating Adams that covenant head over all the world, right?

Worlds destroyed Noah Noah's the head now over all the world But then this curious thing happens

Where Abraham is promised that he's going to be the head and All the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

He's also the head over the entire world Except his covenant is going to take a long time to play out

Because his covenant is going to expand into enemy territory His covenant is going to expand into places with people who hate

God and eventually over time Abraham is going to have a family

That fills the entire world with the glory of God so in that sense

Abraham is entrusted with the future of the world and Scripture presents Abraham as the representative man through whom the blessings of the covenant are gonna flow to all of the families on earth

Which is an incredible thing to promise a childless man To all the nations to all the

Kings to all the people's blessings are gonna flow through the line of Abraham Who has no line?

the fact that Abraham believed it must have been the spirit of God helping him because that's just not no human would believe this and In this sense the

Abrahamic Covenant is God's plans to rescue the entire earth through the covenant headship of Abraham So every covenant has a head the

Abrahamic Covenant has a head just like Adam. He's the head of this covenant The second aspect of a covenant is the stipulations and conditions that are involved in the covenant

Whenever God establishes a covenant head He gives him stipulations that he must follow if he follows the stipulations

He'll be blessed if he disobeys the stipulations He'll be cursed but this covenant is weird and it's unique and it's strange and it's different this covenant

Challenges covenant theologians because it works in weird ways compared to the other covenant what

I mean by that is That God promises to bless Abraham before He gives him his stipulations

God promises I will bless you and anyone who blesses you. I will bless anyone who curses you

I will curse he tells him that before he's told him to do anything and And then

God has this strange cutting ceremony where these dead animals are laying there and only

God walks through and God is saying to Abraham Yeah, I am gonna bless you. Yeah, I am gonna make the entire world bless through you

I'm gonna do all of that and hey sleepyhead. I'm not even gonna have you walk through the animals with me I'm gonna do it without you, which means that Abraham can't fail

It means that the covenant that God promised to Abraham must come true because it's not based off his obedience

Cuz he didn't walk through If he didn't walk through the animals

Then his obedience is not on the chopping block for whether or not the covenant succeeds or fails That's what

God's doing with Abraham He puts him to sleep and then God says may

I be ripped apart if this covenant does not come true Which is unbelievable later in Genesis 15 right after right after the ceremony happens.

God says to Abraham now. I want you to walk blameless before me Abraham I want you to be sinless and you're like Okay Like I know how this works

God I can't do that but oh guess what Abraham I'm not gonna hold your sin against you because I'm the one who'll be ripped apart if the covenant doesn't come true

I want you to be sinless. I want you to be righteous when you walk blamelessly before me, but you're not going to I know

You're not that's why I put you to sleep That's why I walked through because I'm gonna be the one who makes sure this covenant succeeds.

Not you It's incredible the blessings that God promises

Abraham are incredible as well They're basically you could divide them into three things.

So God has told him the stipulations I want you to be blameless. But oh, by the way, I'm not gonna hold it against you if you're not

Which is astounding Then he promises Abraham three things that he's gonna give them.

He's gonna give him a seed You should remember that from Genesis 3 15. The woman's seed is gonna crush the head of the serpent

You have a continuation now of the seed promise God's gonna give

Abraham a seed God's gonna give Abraham a land and God's gonna give Abraham the nations and these blessings

Remember are not rewards for Abraham's obedience These blessings are promises that God is going to give to him on the basis of God's obedience on the basis of God's Love on the basis of God's grace not

Abraham's Perfections and the order of these things actually matters,

I think God begins with a seed because everything depends on it. He's talking to a childless man

I'm gonna bless you with a seed It's hard to have Kings come from your line. If you don't have a seed you get what I'm saying

So the order matters The promise of a seed presses directly into Abraham's barrenness and challenges every

Presupposition that this man thought he knew So he's promising a miracle birth he's promising the miraculous

Abraham was commanded to be fruitful in a womb that was already dead

Abraham is promised that he's going to be fruitful in a body that was already past the age of childbearing

The blessing is not Abraham try harder The blessing is not keep going

Abraham. Maybe it'll happen The blessing is if I don't show up and do a miracle you won't have this

I think that's one of the reasons why God made Abraham wait so long so that Abraham couldn't get credit and So that Sarah couldn't get credit

The waiting here is intentional.

The seed is gonna come but the seeds not gonna come through Abraham's timetable and through Abraham's effort

It's gonna be through God and God alone The blessing is delayed But the blessing is not denied and the blessing actually gets deeper and richer and more beautiful the longer that God makes him wait because in that it magnifies the glory of God a hundred year old man and a nine -year -old woman are having a baby

When does that happen? Maybe on the National Enquirer, but that's really not real.

I hope I did not just bust someone's bubble from the seed promise

God moves to the land It Naturally follows if you're gonna have a bunch of seed if you're gonna have a bunch of children

You're gonna need a place to put them. You're gonna need some zip code strung together That's going to be a place for them to live.

So God promises Abraham a place Where the seed is gonna dwell and flourish yet Abraham never possesses the land outright

You'll notice at least not in his lifetime. He walks in it. He surgeons in it He digs some wells there and then after he's dead the

Philistines plug him up because they're like who's this guy who just decided to dig wells in my backyard

He even has to buy the cave that his wife is buried in and Mac Pila because he doesn't own the land

But if this God Could give him a child It's easy for God to give him the land.

Excuse me Finally God promises something even more incredible. He doesn't just promise him a land.

He promises him the nation's So if I were to say to you that that this promise includes the nation's you would think what?

the entire world The nation's means all of them. It doesn't mean some assortment of them

God is promising him the nation's blessings that are gonna stretch further and longer than Abraham could possibly even

Conceive he's gonna have princes and princesses and Kings and Queens who are gonna come from his line this is what

God is saying and then even says that the entire world is gonna come under the blessing of God through this man named

Abraham, which is bananas Here you have

God promising a man whose disobedience can't be counted against him And who's in the fact that he doesn't even have a child yet it's not gonna be counted against him is gonna own the entire world and his people are gonna own the entire world and his people are going to be blessed by God and gonna spread out into every square

Inch of the world and Abraham believed it. I don't mean to put yourself in Abraham's shoes for a second right, you have a few bad seasons at work and you and I are like Maybe God abandoned me

Like our kids don't listen for a couple weeks and we're like Lord if I have found favor in your sight, will you please?

Will you please bring me home? Like how quickly are we to just give up After weeks in this man went decades with the biggest promises that have ever been given with no material ability to be able to do it

Abraham you're gonna have billions of offspring. I don't have one Abraham Kings and Queens are gonna come from you.

I don't even own this the man I'm standing on But because I know you

God I know that you can do the ridiculous and to Abraham that was ridiculous

The fact that he only asks a few clarifying questions in a 25 year span is astounding.

I Would be on my knees every day asking the most ridiculous whiny

Tear -jerking questions. God. Why have you forsaken me and you would too But because he believed

God it was credited to him as righteousness and he never saw it happen with his own eyes He died before an ounce of that land.

Sorry. He owned the cave. This wife was buried in that's all he owned when he died The blessings that God promises him are absolutely astounding and he believes them.

There's also curses promised in this covenant Curses for disobedience

Now like all covenants there are curses and their curses if you don't obey But we've already said the curses don't apply to Abraham because Abraham wasn't invited into them

So the curses apply to someone else in Genesis 15 God brings

Abraham to this moment where he gets to watch the gospel unfold before his very eyes.

He watches animals split in half He watches God walking through the middle and he says and God says Abraham This is how serious

I am. Abraham says, how can I know God says go to sleep? Splits the animals walks through them

Abraham wakes up and God says this is how serious I am Do you know what that means? God is saying that may

I be ripped apart if I don't do what I told you I'm gonna do and what does that point to?

At the hill of Calvary in order for these promises to come true

Actually back up God tells Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son and then

God tells him to stop Because he's saving that place For his one and only son who would be sacrificed on Abraham's and all of our behalf

So that what? So that the promises would come true to Abraham God's gonna take the curses that we all deserve

So that the Abrahamic blessings would come to his people what are the Abrahamic blessings

That the entire world would come into blessing through Abraham seed Paul tells us the seed of Abraham is

Christ What we're looking at is Nothing less than God saying the entire world is going to come under the authority of his son

Jesus Christ He is the king that was promised that would come from the line of Abraham He is the king who will rule over all the kings of the earth he is the one

Who will bring blessings to every family on earth? I did not say that God said that I believe this that every family on earth eventually is going to come under the blessings of Jesus because it's promised to Abraham and God took the curse on Calvary and And if God went to the trouble of dying for you and I I think he'll probably go to the trouble of giving us the blessings that he promised us a whole world one to Jesus Christ In an amazing

Abraham doesn't taste those curses at all In in an amazing that you and I will never taste those curses at all

Because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. He is the one who was ripped apart for us

So Like I say the Abrahamic Covenant is very interesting because it has curses, but they don't apply to you and I they apply to Christ What's the sign of the

Covenant Every covenant has a sign the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant is circumcision.

Abraham doesn't get out without some bloodshed Abraham doesn't get out with some without some cutting

The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant is circumcision. Not one that Abraham would have made up I've made that joke before but it's true

Raise your hand and if you're a male in this room and you would have made that up Raise your hand if you said, you know what?

I want to prove to the Lord how much I love him today I have an idea that's That's not the way signs work.

But what I think is so fascinating about this sign is where it's applied Now, it's weird

It's strange. We're in polite company. We don't like to talk about it. But where's that applied? It's applied to the very organ

By which procreation happens? He doesn't have a child yet Look at where God put the sign

Every time Abraham and Sarah are alone he could look down and he could say

I Don't see it yet but I see the sign and God's given me the sign and this sign means that I can trust

God and this sign means that we are gonna have a child And this sign means that we are gonna have what

God has promised us And in this way the sign is from God to Abraham because he loves him now listen

It is hard to believe that this is love It's hard to believe that out of all the ways that God could have said

I'm gonna love Abraham today that this was the one That God chose but I want you to remember what it means what it stands for what it is pointing to it's pointing to that Abraham out of your own body is gonna come a child and out of his own body is gonna

Come a child and the nations are gonna be won over to you Abraham through your seed

And I'm gonna place the sign right there so you can't miss it It's beautiful symbol actually when you look at what it means

So that's the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant Every covenant has a meal. I think this is so fascinating.

I could talk about the Abrahamic Covenant for days. I'm sorry I'm only given a hundred thousand foot view It's good

Every covenant has a meal in the same way that God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the

Garden of Eden and Invited them to eat from every tree of the of the garden

God comes to Abraham and sits down with Abraham and Sarah to eat a meal right outside of this place called the

Oaks of Mamre where there is water and springs and it looks like a garden and Genesis 18 the

Lord appears to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre Which is a beautiful grove of trees that look like a garden oasis in the middle of the wilderness

What is the Garden of Eden but a? oasis in the middle of the wilderness It says that God chose a region of the land and made it fruitful and he multiplied it and he made it a garden

He made Adam out in the dusty parts and he pulled him into this garden God gave Adam a prototype of what the garden was supposed to look like So that when

Adam and Eve were fruitful and multiplied and filled that zip code with all their people they'd have to make another one and then he'd have to get out his rake and his hoe and his shovel and his

John Deere tractor at some point because Adam was perfect And I think he would have invented good tools and they would have spread

The garden out until the garden eventually filled the entire world. Look at what's happening here God visits

Abraham in a little garden Surrounded by wilderness. It's the same thing that happened in Eden and How cool is this

When when Adam and Eve send the Lord came and sacrificed an animal right and then clothed them with the skin of an animal and Then cast them out of the garden and what does it say that God put at the edge of the garden to Prevent them from coming back in.

What was it? to cherubim When God comes to Abraham to have a meal with him, he comes with two angels

This time their swords aren't drawn He comes to him eats a meal with him in a garden and the in the angels there are not at war with him

Right after that they go to war with Sodom and Gomorrah and they bring their fiery swords and they destroy that town

But what I want you to see here is for a moment. Abraham is getting a glimpse of heaven The garden place where we meet with God where the angels swords are no longer drawn

And there's this place of peace where God and man dwell together again and perfection and holiness

That's what's being demonstrated here It's a type and it's a picture and is there any wonder brothers and sisters

That when they found Jesus's tomb empty, what did they find at the tomb?

two angels Swords were not drawn The way to God was no longer being guarded with fiery swords and the angels said back to those women

He's not here Because The presence of God now has went out into the world and You don't have to know him through a temple anymore or through a priest anymore, you know him through the

Lord Jesus Christ Abraham is getting a front -row seat to a dress rehearsal dinner

For what Christ is going to do in his resurrection And that amazing And there's so much more but where we have to continue

Every covenant also has a way of transmitting these things to the generations

With the covenant sworn and sealed and marked and sustained God has a way of moving the covenant forward and he does so by By giving the promises to Isaac who then gives the promises to Jacob who then gives the promises to the his twelve sons

Most specifically Judah and it's to Judah Remember in Genesis 49 10 where God promises that the

Shiloh will come God's Son will come and he will rule the world and To him the nations will obey

This is a fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham and the New Testament picks up that Genesis 49 10 promise and says

That's Jesus my point in all of this is

After generations of waiting Abraham got to see a type of The fulfillment that he was promised

He was promised a land. Well, he got a type of that. He owned a cave He was promised a son a seed

Who would bless the entire world? He got a type of that. He got Isaac who blessed his entire tent

Abraham And the promises that were given to him were so big and so grand that Abraham could not

Imagine how they would be fulfilled and that's where we get to Christ This Jesus who was born in a manger was born king of the world this

Jesus who died on the cross for sin is Savior of the world this

Jesus who rose from the grave and left that tomb empty with the two cherubim Swordless is the one who will conquer the world and this

Jesus Who revelation says is the king of kings and the Lord of lords? Will continue to spread his kingdom from that very first invasion in Bethlehem all the way until every knee bows and every tongue confesses

That Jesus Christ is Lord what I want to encourage you is In this

Advent season if you're waiting If you're having to be patient for something remember your father

Abraham and how long he waited for the promises of God and remember Jesus Christ and Orient your life

To the plan and to the kingdom that Jesus is building and wait not like the pagans

Wait, not with angst but wait with hope and joy because Christ has come and Christ is

King and Christ will win Amen, let's pray Lord we thank you

There's so much in the Abrahamic Covenant So much to cover

So much to see so much to say So many things that we didn't even get to look at like the

Mount Moriah sacrifice and and others Melchizedek in that moment

The Lord I do pray though that what was seen in this flyover of one of the most important set of chapters in the

Bible Genesis 12 through 22 What I pray that we see is that Abraham Believed you and it was counted to him as righteousness and that if we believe we are children of Abraham That Christ is the seed of Abraham that Christ is the one who will bring kings and queens and nations to bow down to his feet as was promised

Abraham and Lord if nothing else I pray that in this season of our world where things look dark that we would not look at what things look like But we would cling to what things actually are and that is the promises of God Lord let us learn to do what our father

Abraham did so well and let us cling to your promises and know that you mean what you say when you say that every family on earth will be blessed and that kings and kingdoms will come from you and that your

Offspring Abraham's offspring will be as the sand on the seashore and Lord for 2 ,000 years

You've been winning one grain at a time until you filled the entire sand with your people Lord we thank you.