God’s Promise To Abram Transcript

We covered a lot of ground this week in the narrative lectionary. If you look on our website, you can see readings that follow along from the week that we just talked about to the week that we're in now. It's a great way of following along in this overarching story from Genesis to the early church that we do each year. Just last week, we talked about the garden with Adam and Eve and how Eve and Adam, though they had walked with God, though they could converse with God, they had this intimate experience of the presence of God, they are deceived in asking what did God really want of them instead of asking for themselves. And as a result, they lost out on the promises that God gave them.

He gave them a place to live of security and safety and exploration. He gave them a promise of offspring to be fruitful and to fill the earth. They lost out on that right relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation. And the rest of the stories that we've covered this week bear out that brokenness. Whether it's the story of Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, and others in between.

This brokenness has led to much pain, much doubt, and much sorrow. And God has still been faithful to God's promise. And God is still faithful today. We begin in this story, the story of Abram, where things have already happened in Abram's life that God was already involved with, that I want to touch on to make sure you have it in case you're unfamiliar with the story.

Abram was in a foreign land. He was living in a land that God had called him to step out of that place that he knew to go someplace new. To go someplace where he would be a stranger. To go someplace that wasn't his home and wasn't where he was safe and secure. To take his wife with him, Sarai.

And in that promise of a new place, a new land that he would have as his own, was a promise of a future. A promise of future descendants that would fill the earth. Not just for Abram's sake, but we remember from this initial promise that God was blessing Abram and sending him out and giving him children so that he would be a blessing to the whole world. And Abram went.

Abram went from this place that he had called home and he went to this strange land and a good deal of time has passed. And we hear in today's passage, if we hear it just right, we don't hear God, Abram, just talking to God and saying, well, what's going on here? There's some accusation in his voice. You promised me children and they haven't come. You have promised me a land, and you promised me descendants, and my wife is still barren. What's going on? God, when are you going to do what you promised you were going to do?

And there was some doubt in his voice. There was some doubt in God's promises. There was some doubt in the future that he was promised to receive. And he just wanted some assurance that God was still there. That God's promises were true. That he could trust and have faith.

How many of you have been there? How many of you have been in that place where you thought for sure God was leading you? Where you were facing the unknown, an unknown place, unknown people, unknown future, and you didn't know whether God was there or not, or if God was going to fulfill his promises. You were caught in doubt. God, are you really there? God, is this really what you want me to do? God, when are you going to do what you promised you would do? When are you going to do that? When are you going to show up?

I'd be surprised if there's no one in the room that never came to that point. Asking those questions or something like them. In that point of indecision and doubt, calling out to God, say, God, just speak to me. Show me. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me that you're still there. Tell me that I can still trust you. Because my doubt in this moment really strong.

And I'm not sure it's going to... My faith is going to be strong. My faith is going to hold out any longer.

This is where Abram is. He has left everything he's known. And he's unsure of the future. And caught in that in -between space, between God calling and the fulfillment of God's promises, Abram only has the ability to cry out to God. You promised me this. Where are you? Now fortunately for Abram, God answers. God's voice calls. God points to the stars above and says, look at the stars in the sky and count them if you even can.

Your descendants will outnumber these stars. It hasn't happened yet. But it will. So God doesn't give Abram what he's asking for right away. God doesn't immediately make things better. God doesn't immediately erase the doubts. God points to the stars that are always there. This isn't a new rainbow in the heavens following the rains following Noah saying I will never destroy the earth again by flood. This isn't some new sign that never existed before that Abram had no access to before this moment. But God is calling to see his surroundings. God is calling him to see what is already there and present and says, look, notice, and see. And then he puts a different spin on what's always been there to begin with.

I don't know if Abram's doubt is erased completely.

But I do know his faith is restored. In our lives, we often pit doubt and faith against each other. Saying, well, if you have faith and there is no room for doubt, there is no room for questioning. We somehow think it's wrong to question God and to say, God, what's going on here? Where are you and what are you going to do? We somehow think it's wrong to question God. We somehow see that as a weakness. We see that as something to avoid. We realize that we try to shut down this part of us that is true and there and nagging at our spirit because somehow we think it's a sign that we don't trust God.

I think Abram still had those questions because we know in the next part of the story that we don't cover in our weeks ahead that there were still questions of how God was going to fulfill God's promise.

Sarah remains barren. She remains barren for some time to the point where she offers up her slave to Abram to produce an heir. His name is Ishmael.

There are still questions of whether or not God was still going to do what God promised he was going to do.

And they have to reckon that. They have to figure out what they're going to do next because of it. And in that story as well, we see that it is their doubts, and their questioning, and their inability to go to God and say, what do you want, just like in the garden, that leads to them taking that action.

Eventually, Abram and Sarah had their own son. Their names are changed from Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah.

And even then, the relationship is never quite the same as we read through the story. It's that same brokenness that started in the garden that carries through even until today.

And then we get this reading in Hebrews. It's a restatement of the end of our Genesis passage that God saw his righteousness it reckoned it to him. And we talk in Hebrews that Paul says that Abram knew the promises, he received the promises, but he trusted in God knowing that he would never see the fulfillment of those promises. And he talked as living strangers on earth knowing that those promises would happen, but he would not see it.

If there's any description that explains, that shows our modern life and our modern understanding of faith and where we are now, in my mind, it's that one. I've said it before, and I say it again, we are a people who live between what was and what will be. We are a people that live between the resurrection of Christ and the promise of restoration and reconciliation and the fulfillment of all things where righteousness will rain down, where justice will flow like an unending stream, where there will be no more war and violence, and people will learn war no more. We are living in that in -between as people of the promise. People who have been told by Christ that the way things are not the way things are going to be and to look forward and trust.

And like Abram, we enter into times of doubt and struggle and questioning, saying, how long, oh God, when will this be? How long must there still be division and hate? How long must we speak against our neighbors? How long will pain and suffering endure? And when will you finally come and we can taste and see the promises that you've offered?

And when we get to those points of questioning, those points of doubt, those points of wondering, what if instead of saying, no, I can't ask those questions, no, I can't be angry at God, no, I can't explore these things and these doubts, I can't express the doubts that I'm feeling, instead of saying, all of those things because I have heard them, usually around tragedy, people will say, well, I know I'm not supposed to be angry at God right now, but I really am. I know I shouldn't be asking God's, doubting God's plans right now, but I really am.

What if part of Abram's faith is expressing those doubts, expressing the questions, pointing his finger at God and saying, you promised me this, when's it gonna happen?

Because if we reject God, if we don't believe God is there, if we don't think God is listening and with us, there's really no point of shaking our finger at Him. If we believe honestly that He's not there, or doesn't care, then our finger wagging means nothing. It's the very fact that we trust God enough to fulfill His promises, we trust God enough that He is with us and beside us on the journey, we trust God enough that He will make happen what He has told us He will do, and that He cares about what we're going through, that our questions and our finger wagging make any real difference.

They are a sign of our faith, not a lack of it.

So maybe in these moments, in this in between time, when we are caught between what was promised and its fulfillment, living as strangers on this earth, what if in these times where, yes, we express doubt, and questions, we need to look with new eyes, see the stars above in a new way, see the signs in our community where healing happens, where reconciliation is at play, where there are people on the street saying that how we treat our neighbors matter, that say how we live on this earth makes a difference, that say that we do not lie for a common good.

There are signs that make a difference. Jesus' reconciliation, the restoration of those relationships broken in the garden between humans and God, humans and one another, humans in creation. There are signs of that reconciliation at work already, and we either don't see them, don't recognize them, or don't know what to do with them.

And maybe in these moments, we need to ask for the Spirit to speak to us and show us those signs, just like God's voice spoke to Abram. them and said, look at the stars. Look at the stars and trust. See, I am already in your midst doing a new thing. open your eyes and see it and then join it. The reality is, like I said, we live in a world of delay. We live with a God who has his own time, his own purposes, his own plans. We are not aware of them fully. We don't know when they're going to come to fruition.

We live in that in -between and we will shake our fingers. We will ask how long, but God has invited us to this place, surrounded us by brothers and sisters in Christ who are on this same journey, who are waiting for the same things, that are asking the same questions, not by accident, but so that we can walk beside one another. We can point those signs out and say, wait a minute, you're not seeing something. Wait a minute, God is here. Let us pray together. Let us walk together. Let us learn together. Let us work together. Let us seek God's promises together and who will remind us that along the journey we may never get to where the promise is. The promises are fulfilled in our lifetime. We may never see more than glimpses of them ourselves, by doing those practices of faith together, by opening our eyes and seeking God's spirit, we can see the mountains in the distance and keep walking towards them.

What's credited to Abram, and it's talked about in Hebrew, is a faith that survives. It survives and thrives in the midst of questions and doubts, in the midst of challenging circumstances, in the midst of not getting to where you think you need to be yet. It's a faith that says, okay, God, I don't know how this is going to happen. I don't know when this is going to happen, but I trust you. So Abram continued on his journey to what was next. Those doubts crept in again. There were challenges. He made wrong choices. He made wrong choices. He made wrong choices. But his faith was still credited to him even centuries later by Paul. You too will have questions and doubts. You too will make wrong choices along the way. But like you, Abram, your faith too will be credited to you because you're making the journey, traveling along the way, trusting in God's promises that they will come.

Ultimately, Abram's journey from Abram to Abraham, from barren in a land that he was not supposed to stay in, to a land flowing and promised, shows that God's promises are sure and will come in God's timing. And we are called to trust and maintain our faith and walk along that journey knowing that God is faithful and will fulfill his word.

So in the end, we're going to have to trust God. We're going to have to trust God. We're going to be in the midst of doubt, in the midst of challenges, in the midst of being unsure of what's next. Let us hold on to God's promises, confident that the God who began a good work in us, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, will carry us on to completion.