Faith the LORD Counts as Righteousness

Genesis 15:1-6 The verses of Holy Scripture that we have before us today deal with one of the most important men in the Bible and some of the most important events in salvation history.

The Jews of Jesus’ day and Jesus himself used Abraham as an example of what life with God was all about.  Both Paul and James referenced events from Abraham’s life to talk about how a person can be right in God’s sight.

For our own purposes here today we are going to consider this text from the perspective of both, a believer’s life, and what matters in the end.  The Bible says that:  After these things…  Well, what things are those?

If we go back to what happened immediately before these verses, Abram had won a great military victory, rescued his family members from their enemies, and was blessed by the King of Salem who was also a priest of the most-high God.  All of it a high point in Abram’s life.

But if you go even farther back, there is the call of the Lord to Abram to journey to a place he had never seen before and how he stepped out in faith.  There is the lie Abram told to Pharaoh about Sarai to save himself and there is the family strife between him and Lot. 

And so then, After these things… references the great highs in Abram’s life and the great low’s.  These words encompass the great acts of faith and the failures of sinful faithlessness, large and small.  In ALL this we see a picture of the life of a believer.

In our own lives there are great successes:  academic and business and professional-- and there are failures:  the last rung on the corporate ladder we don’t climb, the degree we are not able to finish, the opportunities we missed. 

In our own lives there are spiritual high points:  when we are especially close to the Lord, when our faith-life is deepening and growing, when we see our children take their own place in the church.  But there are also the lows:  the selfishness that makes for conflict in our families, the sins great and small that always remind us that we are not yet all that God wants us to be.

Throughout the Bible, Abram is referenced as the man of faith—and he is!  But he is, still, just a man--subject to all the joys and sorrows of life in this broken world.

That is important for us to remember!  The joys and the successes and the victories are wonderful when they happen but they do not last.  We are not magically immunes from the brokenness of this world, the sinfulness of our flesh, or the temptations of the devil. 

Sin and sorrow was part of Abram’s life and it will be part of ours too but there is a faithful God who is with us and invites to cast our cares upon him.  The Bible says that:

…the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

            These words were spoken to Abram after a great military victory and a great spiritual blessing.  Anybody who was looking at Abram’s life from the outside would have said that he had the world by the tail.  But God knew what was in his heart:  the fear and turmoil that was there-- and he made him a remarkable promise:  the LORD was his shield and his reward.

No matter how fearful and uncertain the future, the LORD was his shield—no matter what great victories he would have, it was really the LORD who would be his reward.  In good times and in bad times, it was the LORD himself who would be his blessing and helper.

So it is for us.  Any victories or joys or successes we have are only for this life and most of them don’t last very long even in this life.  What a comfort to know that the LORD is our reward—our enduring, everlasting blessing.

And when there is fear and uncertainty in our life—even if it is (as it often is) of our own making, what a comfort to know that the LORD himself is the one who will be our shield.  That was the promise of God to Abram and that is the promise of God to us.  It is that love and care and concern that allows us to go to the Lord with all that is on our heart, knowing that he desires only to bless us in the midst of it.  That’s what Abram did.  He 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.”

            When God called Abram to walk by faith to a land and a future he did not know, he made him a promise:  that the LORD would make Abram a great nation and that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. 

Years went by- and years would go by- and still there was no child in their family that Abram and Sarai could lay hold of and know the promise of God fulfilled.  They simply had to walk by faith, trusting that God was faithful and could be counted on to keep his promises even when there was no way for them to see it.

They did not always succeed in that—there were real faith failures.  At this moment Abram was planning for his heir to be someone from outside the marriage.  We know that in short order Sarai would come up with her own sinful scheme to produce an heir.

In all of this they struggled to rely simply on God’s Word and walk by faith and not by sight-- and I think that we understand this about our own lives of faith, don’t we?

            God says, I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future and yet how often do we worry what the future holds?!  God says, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for I go with you; and will never leave you nor forsake you” and yet how often do we feel all alone in the world?  God says that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and for the sins of the world and yet how often do we carry around a load of guilt for sins long since forgiven and forgotten by Jesus?!  We too have faith struggles.  And yet…

Called by God to be his people, we must journey home by faith and not by sight.  We are called to believe his promises even when we cannot see them. 

And there are times in our life, just like there was for Abram when we doubt those promises and try to find peace and hope and fulfillment in some other place than the promises of God.  The LORD knows this about us just like he did Abram.  The Bible says that the LORD:  knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust and so he works in our lives to strengthen our faith in him because, in the end, that is what truly matters.  The Bible says that:

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.”

            What Abram discovered that day is that the LORD’s promises are true and he doesn’t need our help to bring them to bear.  He is more than capable of fulfilling his promises!

Already in Abram’s life the Lord had made this promise by directing his attention to the dust of the earth and asked him to number the grains of the sand if he were able and so his descendants would be.  From that moment on, in every moment of Abram’s journey home, every step he took on the dusty ground beneath his feet would remind him of the faithfulness and strength of the Lord.

But there was even more to the promise!  The earth that Abram walked upon was the earth the Lord had created and the earth from which the Lord had brought forth the first man.  And so every step of his life’s journey Abram would be reminded that the Lord had the power and faithfulness to keep his word and provide a son by his mighty power .

Now that promise was renewed in the stars above, to remind him again of the creative power of God who called the heavenly bodies into being-- but also to show Abram that his descendants would be much, much more than an earthly people with an earthly home.  They would be a heavenly people who would live forever with God in heaven. 

Every time he lifted up his eyes at night he would be reminded of the promise of God that his descendants would come from his own body and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through them.  That promise would find an immediate fulfillment in the birth of Isaac but its true fulfillment is found in Jesus-- who Matthew calls the Son of Abraham. 

Jesus says about this promise that Abraham looked forward to his day and rejoiced.  Abram didn’t know all the details of Jesus’ work like we do-- but he trusted the promise of God that was grounded in the earth beneath his feet and the stars above his head.

In the same way the Lord strengthens our faith in his promises by connecting them to the fruits of his creation in bread and wine and water and words so that we can believe in him and be strengthened in our faith which is what really matters in the end.  The Bible says that Abram:  believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

There were victories and defeats in Abram’s life and there were spiritual highs and lows.  But the victorious highs were not the source of his life with God and the sinful lows did not destroy that life.  What mattered in the end was the faith Abram had in the promises that God had made.  Believing those promises, Abram was right in God’s sight.

So it is for us.  There are going to be highs and lows when it comes to our life with God.  There are going to be joys and sorrows as we live on earth.  But our life with God does not rest upon anything in us--but rather upon his promises that we lay hold of by faith.

What we see throughout Abram’s story is that the LORD is worthy of that faith!  He is the God of kept promises who raised up the offspring of Abram in Jesus Christ through whom all the families of men have been blessed, including us here today!  Amen.