In response to people’s delight in his failure to win the 2011 NBA finals, LeBron James said this after he lost (June 12, 2011): ““All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.”
He's not going to win any friends or fans by his careless defensive remarks as the loser. But what he says is true. Similarly, Henry Thoreau observed, "The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation." From Genesis 15, we will see how God helped Abram face life in the real world of personal problems and quiet desperation.
Theme: God gives real confidence to Abram when he had humanly irresolvable doubts about God and about himself.
Goal: To plant confidence in God’s people when they are filled with their own doubts, sorrows and fears.
Application: Only the bloody cross of Jesus taking our sins upon himself enables us to live with real confidence in the real world, despite all of our doubts that are inevitable.
- Abram had doubts (Gen 15:2-3) after experiencing a great victory (Gen 14:1-24) and despite God's great assurance (Gen 15:1). Is doubt inevitable in the Christian life?
- How did God deal with Abram's doubt (Gen 15:4-5; John 20:24-29)? How might conservatives and liberals deal with doubt?
- How does Paul use Gen 15:6 to prove his doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone (Rom 4:2-5; Gal 3:5-6)? Think of faith as "Faith faces the facts, but it also faces the facts of God."
- Explain the covenant ceremony in Gen 15:9-18 (Jer 34:18-20). Compare the darkness Abram experienced (Gen 15:12) with another darkness centuries later (Mark 15:33-34). Why was Jesus cut off (Isa 53:8; Gal 3:14; Luke 22:20)?
3 world religions look to Abraham as a model for living. It is almost as though he had an anchor to his life (Heb 6:19), so that no matter how much he was beaten and buffeted by the sorrows of life, he held firm. He held to his principles. He stuck to his purposes. The question is how can we have a life like that? How are we going to live a masterful life and master the real world where “new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face”?
In this text, a particular obstacle to living a masterful life that Abram faced is doubt. How are we going to deal with doubt in the pain, misery, sorrows and desperation of life? How can you believe in God when life goes south and gets discouraging? Everyone struggles with doubt. She loves me? She loves me not? How can we trust God? How can we live by faith? How can we move forward in our relationship with God? Christian or non-Christian, countless people do not know how to deal with doubt. But this text tells us about:
- The Reality of Doubt (The nature of doubt).
- The Deconstruction of Doubt (How God deals with doubt; how God takes it apart).
- How can we apply it to our own situation?
Gen 15:1 says, "After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: 'Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.'" Abram is scared after rescuing his nephew Lot and his family militarily from 4 marauding kings (Gen 14). What about retaliation? Who's going to attack me? The phrase “The word of the Lord came...” is unique in the Pentateuch. It only shows up here, though it shows up often in the prophetic writings. It’s a revelation/vision/voice of tremendous clarity from God. How does Abraham respond? Was he relieved? Did he say, "Thanks, God. This really helps." No.
He spews up things that have bottled up in his heart. He asked about the son promised him (Gen 15:2-3). Abram's response to this incredible revelation is doubt. What does God do? “The word of the Lord...” comes to him again (Gen 15:4). God takes himself outside so gently and tenderly and gives him tremendous encouragement of how much God would do through Abram (Gen 15:4-5). Momentarily, Abraham believes and was credited with righteousness (Gen 15:6). Then when God promised him the land (Gen 15:7), Abram still had doubts: “How can I know that I will gain possession of it?” (Gen 15:8) How can I be certain?
We learn here the inevitability of doubt, even after Abraham had left everything--his country, his culture, his family--by simply trusting in the promises of God (Gen 12:1-4). Abraham is the father of 3 world religions and he just received a clear revelation from God twice (Gen 15:1,4), and he was filled with doubt. Will you have less doubts than our father of faith? How do you think you will do? It's likely that we will never get past our doubts entirely. There will always be some doubt at some level. Doubt is a problem that never goes away. It is inevitable. How does God deal with our doubt?
The Bible gives a balanced nuanced view of doubt. Does God say, “How dare you question me? Doubt me?” Never. Or does God say, “It’s OK. We all have doubts”? No. God does not condemn Abram for his doubts, yet he keeps challenging him. There is a remarkable balance. It is similar to Jesus challenging Thomas to believe after he expressed his doubts and demanded to put his hands where the nail marks were. If this was so evil, why did Jesus still gives in to his demand? Then after showing him his nail marks, Jesus gently rebukes him saying, "Stop doubting and believe" (John 20:24-29). There is a fascinating balance where doubt is never encouraged, yet doubters are completely welcomed.
Conservative sensibility thinks of doubt as a total failure and as a complete evil, where no one is supposed to have doubt, or is allowed to have doubt, or to express doubt about intellectual or emotional struggles. It is viewed as bad, as a weakness. It is frowned upon, because “You must just believe and trust God.” If a church or a community is created like this, it is telling the world you can’t be an authentic Christian, intellectually and emotionally, and have doubt. Such an attitude toward doubt is so unattractive, and so many have been turned off by it. Not only that, many Christians are frightened by doubt, and are self-condemned by their doubts because they have no outlet to address their doubt(s).
What about Abram? What if Abram said, "OK. That's good. I have no doubts. I believe fully"? Then we would not have the 2nd part of this chapter which shows the grace of God and the gospel more explicitly than anywhere else in the whole Bible. There is no greater place in all of the Bible, not even in Romans, that goes beyond this amazing graphic display of grace.
In brief, when Abram expressed doubt, saying, "My faith is weak," God embraced him and his doubts, and reassured him. God would show him how to live a masterful life. The conservative approach to doubt is, "Don't doubt!" But the liberal sensibility or approach to doubt thinks that it is intellectually sophisticated and emotionally mature to always have doubt about everything. Always be skeptical. Always be cynical about everything. Always deconstruct everything. Always have unresolved eternal doubt about everything. But you can’t be completely dubious about everything. You can only doubt/be skeptical of everything, if you refuse to doubt/be skeptical of yourself and doubt your own doubts. If one is going to be cynical about everything, then they also have to be cynical about their own cynicism. At least one should be open to the possibility that if you are cynical about everything, all you are is gutless--one who refuses to commit to anything out of fear. Under the veneer of their cynicism/skepticism is cowardice. Basically you can dish it out but you can't take it yourself.
God doesn’t respond like conservatives: "How dare you doubt?" Instead, God welcomes the doubters like Abram and Thomas. God also doesn't respond like the liberal: "It’s OK to doubt." God challenges them. God embraces and challenges both the conservative and the liberal approach to doubt. Therefore, the way to become like Abram is to admit and look at your doubt, your weakness, your inability, your thorn in the side.
II. The Deconstruction of Doubt (Gen 15:9-21)
How is doubt structured? How can I deal with doubt so that I can live a confident life? We can see it in the 2 occasions Abram asked "How?" There are 2 components of doubt:
- How can I know about God? I don’t trust God. What can YOU give me.. (Gen 15:2-3). We are afraid of giving up control to God, and of trusting God fully, thinking that God will demand too much of me, that I will loose too much, leading to miserable life.
- How can I know about me? I don't trust myself. How can I know... (Gen 15:8). Even if God is faithful, I don't know if I can keep it up, if I can make the cut, if I can keep my end of the deal. I can't see myself living like this. I'm scared.
When God instructed Abram to get some animals and birds (Gen 15:9), Abram knew exactly what to do by cutting the 3 animals in half (Gen 15:10). He knew that God wanted to make a covenant, a solemn binding contract. It is hard for us to understand this because we live in a written culture, not an oral culture. (We write out contracts for both parties to keep the terms of the contract, or face penalties/consequences.) Abram’s time was an oral culture, a story telling culture. They made contracts by acting out ritually and dramatizing the consequences of breaking the covenant. The contract ceremony was to make the one who promises accountable for breaking the promise/contract. Then the parties have confidence that they will keep the terms, or face the penalty.
What are the animals about? Jer 34:18-20, a cryptic verse, says, “Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. 19 The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, 20 I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.” This was how a covenant was made. When you cut an animal in half, and walk between the pieces, you are ritually identifying with the cut animals and acting out the consequences/penalty for breaking the covenant. You are saying, “If I do not keep my end of the contract, may I be cut off, may my flesh be cut up and strewn out on the land.” This was to make the one who promises accountable to pay the penalty for failure to fulfill the promise/breaking the contract. This was always done when a great king went into a relationship with small vessel kings. This was so prevalent that Gen 15:18 literally says in the Hebrew, “On that day the Lord CUT a covenant...” which involved blood shed. In this way, the one who promises took on a covenant curse, saying, "May this be true of me, if I fail to keep my contract." The ESV Study Bible explains: "The ritual described here is possibly a type of oath that involves a self-curse if not fulfilled; God will become like the dead animals if he does not keep his word."
God enters into this covenant that Abram understood. But God also transformed it. God did 2 stunning things in Gen 15:17-18. Then Abraham had no more doubts after this. He no longer needed to ask, "How?" after this. What are 2 stunning things that God did?
2) Who doesn't pass between the pieces? Though God would keep his part as God, what if I can't keep my part as God's person? So, another part of the doubt is that I’m scared I may not be able to keep my end of the contract, though I know that God will keep his end of the covenant. I’m going to fail. I'm not going to be able to get to the finish line. I'm full of weaknesses and sins and evil. I’m surely going to let God down. I’m surely going to let myself down. In Gen 15:18 the covenant is cut. But Abraham doesn’t go through the pieces.
Historically, when a great king makes a covenant with their vessel king, if the king is nice, he may go through the pieces with the vessel king. But most great kings did not bother to go between the pieces, since he held all the cards. The great king knows that he doesn't need the small vessel king, but that the vessel king needed the great king. So, often just the small vessel king walked through the pieces alone.
Here God, one greater than any great king, alone goes through the pieces and says, "The covenant is cut" (Gen 15:18). What does this mean? God is saying, “I will bless you, no matter if I fail, or no matter if you fail. Either way, I will be cut up. I will pay the penalty, I will be accountable, I will take the consequences, regardless if I fail, or if you fail.” God will assume/absorb the cost regardless of who fails. This is an unbelievable one-sided covenant.
Abram had no idea about the cost of this oath of grace. But centuries later a darkness came down again. It was so dark that it put out the sun at noon. Mark 15:33-34 say, “At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” What happened to Jesus when he was crying out. Jesus was "cut off from the land of the living" (Isa 53:8). Why? So that God can say to us, “If you believe in me, I will bless you unconditionally,” regardless if God fails, or if Abraham/man fails.
Paul understood this and had the audacity to say in Gal 3:13-14: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.' He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."
III. Application in our own situation
How can we apply this? There are 2 kinds of people (and a 3rd group don’t know which group they belong to).
1) Those who have never made a commitment to Christ. Why not? They have all these questions and doubts that they're afraid to give themselves to God. But you are giving yourself to something else that you’re afraid to loose. All other religions make you go through the pieces. All other approaches to living confidently says, "This will be my shield. This will be my reward. I will do this, I will do that. Then I know that I can face life." But you will fail, because if you search deeply, you know that you will never come through as you should. You have a limitation. You can save yourself, nor reward yourself.
Abram was like a man with an anchor. Heb 6:13-14,17-19 says, "When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, 'I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.' 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” An anchor is useless unless it is in the rock. If the anchor is still in the water, it is useless. Whatever we put our anchor in, it will go (health, friendship, relationships, family, talents, looks, memory). I am your shield. There is no other anchor, no other shield/security/stability other than God that will last. Your looks will certainly go. Your memory will too. Every other religion puts your anchor down into your performance, and your good works.
When God says, "I am your shield, I am your reward," God is saying that "Unless I am your shield, you do not have a shield. Unless I am your reward, you do not have a reward. Unless I am your security, you have no security."
2) Those who have made a commitment to Christ, and yet their anchor is still not deeply and permanently in the rocks. They say, "I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Bible." But practically, they do not. Their problems/sorrows/doubts/bitterness still rule them. All your problems are because you don’t have your anchor deep enough.
Why are you worried today? I’m afraid God is not going to come through for me. Though you know intellectually what Jesus did for you on the cross and that Jesus loves you, yet you don't emotionally know it, because you're still worried. If you’re bitter because someone insulted you, and you can't get past it, and can't forgive, it's because your anchor is not deep enough. Who cares what people think of me, when God accepts me fully. No one can overcome worry or bitterness by trying harder not to worry, or by trying harder to not be bitter.
When Jesus went down under the wrath of God and divine justice, when Jesus went into the worst storm, the worst darkness, he held on for me. When I think of Jesus doing this for me, am I moved? Am I sorry that I don't dwell deeper in this realization and that I am still concerned about the nagging irritations of my own life? If I am, then the anchor is getting deeper. The Lord’s supper shows us that Jesus was broken to pieces, cut to pieces (Luke 22:20), for me.
This is based on a sermon by Tim Keller's: "Real Confidence and the Blazing Torch" (Gen 15:1-21).
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