Sermon Notes from July 23rd

Sermon Text:  Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 15:1-21

We finished up our series looking at the first few chapters of Genesis.  We have looked at the origins of creation, humanity, and sin.  And on Sunday, we looked at the origin of God's rescue plan for humanity.  We saw how God decided to take one man, Abraham, and make a covenant with him.  It was this covenant with Abraham that was the first glimpse of how God was going to bring about His rescue plan.  The covenant God had made with Abraham was that God would make his name great, he would receive land, his offspring would be numbered like the stars, and that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham needed to follow God and His commandments. And it says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.  

We saw how God had told Abraham to go get some animals and Abraham cut the animals in half.  This is very strange to us but it was a familiar way in which parties would act out the terms of a covenant.  And normally, it would be the party with lesser power or status that would walk through the carcasses of the animals as a statement saying that if he or she didn't uphold the terms of the covenant, then let them be cut off like the animals they were walking through.  But the surprising thing in the story that we saw is that the lesser party (Abraham) didn't pass through the animals, but God did, taking upon Himself the terms and consequences of the covenant if either party didn't uphold their side.  

The rest of Genesis and the Old Testament is the story about Abraham and his descendants.  And unfortunately, they didn't uphold their end of the covenant.  So Jesus came and took upon himself the punishment of breaking the covenant in our place, being cut off on the cross, not because God didn't keep His word but because of humanity's inability to keep their end of the deal, following God and keeping His commandments.  In so doing, Jesus fulfilled the covenant God made with Abraham, bringing blessing to all the families of the earth through him. Galatians 3:7 says that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.  All who display faith in Jesus are the offspring of Abraham, the recipients of God's redemption and rescue.  

So we were reminded about 2 simple, yet powerful truths about God:

1. He is always faithful.  God can be trusted and He keeps His promises.

2. He is always loving.  God pursues us even when we rebel against Him.

And we saw 2 responses to these truths that should come from humanity:

1. We need to have faith in Jesus.  It is through faith that we are saved and are made righteous.

2. We need to obey Jesus. It is from this righteous standing from faith that we can rightly obey Him.