It is good to be with you this morning. We have many guests. It is good to see new faces and friends. This morning we will be looking at Genesis 15. So if you will turn with me in your Bibles, we will be looking at this Old Testament passage, God's covenant with Abram. We will read the entire chapter, so please follow along. 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. But Abram said, O sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless? And the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir. Then the word of the Lord came to him. This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land, to take possession of it. But Abram said, O Lord, O sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it? So the Lord said to him, Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon. Abram brought all these things to him, cut them in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own. and they will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites. Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Well, indeed, it's the end of the year, and we're on the verge of a new year. It's a time often for reflection, to look back and to think about what's happened, but also a time to look forward, see where things will go in the coming year. So as you're doing that, think about a promise. Think of a promise that maybe someone has made to you. a promise that they've kept, or even worse, perhaps a promise that they've not kept, a promise that someone's failed to come through on. Boys and girls, perhaps you were promised a Christmas present, the one Christmas present that you wanted more than anything else. But by the end of the day, when everything was unwrapped, when all the paper was put away, that Christmas present wasn't around. It wasn't there. The promise did not come through. That would be devastating. It would be crushing. Today, though, as we look at Genesis 15, we're seeing that God is faithful to his promises. We read of a promise that God made thousands of years ago. And even as we think about this Christmas season, we see it's a promise that he's fulfilling. It's a promise that he's making good on through Jesus Christ, his Son. Well, as we look at this covenant of promise, God's covenant of promise, we'll look at two things. First, we'll see how God graciously contracted this promise. And secondly, how it's meritoriously consummated by Christ. And boys and girls, I'll explain what that means in a little bit. But there needs two points. Graciously contracted by God and meritoriously consummated by Christ. Well, Pastor Voss has been preaching often in the last several months about Jacob and Joseph. Well, we're moving backwards in Genesis. We're moving to their grandfather or their great-grandfather, Abram. Abram, who was called out of the nations, called by God. If you flip back to Genesis 12, you see how God called him. Chapter 12, verse 1. The Lord said to Abram, Leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great. This is the promise that God made to Abram. Chapter 15 is just a fuller explanation of that promise. There's some more details that God gives to Abram. But if you look just a little bit in chapter 14, you know the story how Abram rescued his cousin Lot. How Abram, from his own household, gathered a mighty army. 200 plus men to rescue Lot. So Abram's already become a great nation. He's got power. He's got wealth. He's got possessions. But yet, that's not enough, is it? That's not the fullness of the promise. Because just with those things, Abram cannot become a blessing to the nations. He will not bless those around him just by being powerful and wealthy. So there's more to this promise. And as we look at Genesis 15 this morning, We'll see the extent of the promise. Abram, indeed, will be a blessing to all nations. All people will be blessed through him. No, God had not forgotten his promise to Abraham. God is a faithful God, and he was carrying through his promise. So you look at verse 1 of chapter 15. After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield. and your very great reward. You can imagine the fearful thing it would be for the presence of the Lord to be near you. Frightening, terrifying to have God, the holy God, which Pastor Donovan talked about. A God who has a holy law to which we can never measure. This God comes to Abram. Do not be afraid. I am your shield and your very great reward. But how can this be? How could God be a great reward when it seems like he's not even fulfilling his promise? Abraham doesn't even have a child yet. He's been promised to be the father of many nations, a blessing to many people. And yet, at the age of, well, he's older than 75, he still doesn't even have a son. It doesn't seem to be a blessing, but rather a curse. But here we see the details of the promise. Look in verse 4. Then the word of the Lord came to him because Abraham thought, well, since I don't have a son, I guess my descendants will be through this servant, Eliezer of Damascus. But the Lord said to him, this man, this man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. Older than 75, and yet God's promising that he will have a son from his own body. He will give birth to a son whom he can call his own. Striking promise. Hard to believe? Very hard to believe. So much time has passed already since Abram had been called out of Ur. But the promise doesn't stop there. It's not just that he's just going to have one child. The promise is greater than that. That he'll have children, descendants, as numerous as the stars. Boys and girls, I don't know if you've ever gone outside at night, on a clear night. Not in the city, but in the country. and you look up at the stars and you try to count them. You might get to a hundred or even a thousand. But there's so many more that you cannot count. Abram was taken outside by the Lord. He was told to look up, to look at the stars, to number them if he could. And then given the promise that so shall his offspring be. He will have so many descendants. Many of us come from big families, so we know what it's like to gather together during the holidays. Many of you know that I'm one of ten, so when we're together, it's about 30 people, just my immediate family. That's a lot of people, that's a lot of chaos. But yet, the promise to Abraham, to Abram here, is that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Look at verse 6. Though this seems hard to believe, it's hard for Abraham to grasp that even at his old age, the Lord will come through on this promise. Abraham believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness. Abraham believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness. Abraham laid hold of the promises of God by faith. He looked to the Lord to accomplish his promises, to come through on what he had said he would do. This is such an important verse in Scripture, but we're going to deal with it a little bit later. Don't worry, I'm not neglecting it. But think about this righteousness for just a moment. You know, often when we think of righteousness, we think of somebody doing something, somebody obeying a moral code to become righteous. But yet here, it's just Abram's faith. It's just by faith that he's counted righteous. There's no works, no merit. No, Abram expected everything from God. There's no self-reliance. He did nothing to come through to make the promise come about on his own. Nor are there any room for other gods. Abram believed God. He didn't trust in these other gods. He didn't believe in some other deity to bring this about, but he trusted in God. The God who promised these things, Abram trusted that he would come through and deliver these promises. But again, the promise is so much greater than that. There's more details. Look at verse 8, verse 7 and 8 here. He also said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it. Not only would Abraham have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of descendants, but he would have a land, a piece of property to call his own. Having been called out of Ur of the Chaldeans, he's still living in Canaan as a foreigner, as a stranger, not knowing where he's going to live next month. He may have to pack up his tent and move even the next day. But yet the promise is that this land will be his. It will be the home of his descendants. It will be their property. And they will dwell there in security. Now as if the promise wasn't great enough, and as if it wasn't seem like it was taking long enough, you can understand perhaps why Abram's faith was wavering a little bit. He believed the Lord, but yet he says in verse 8, Oh, sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will take possession of it? It's kind of like the father of the demon-possessed man in Mark 4, who says, Lord, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness. But he needed a little boost, a little confidence. He needed something to help him through the dark times. To get them through the long period in which it seemed like God would not deliver. And perhaps here, even this morning, as we live our lives in this sin-cursed world, we need something. We need a little boost to help us get through the day. We need something, something that we can see or something that we can touch so that we know that the promises of God are going to come true. And again, we've been given something, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. I'm putting a lot to the end, but I want to set up the story first for you. So Abram asks, how can it be? And so God gives him a sign. Of boys and girls, this sign that we read of is kind of strange. Let's read through it again. Look at verse 9. The Lord said to him, bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon. Verse 10. Abram brought these to him, cut them in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. Sounds kind of strange, doesn't it? Abram asked to cut up animals, line them up in two rows. Not to be gross, boys and girls, but you can imagine the blood kind of trickling into the middle, kind of forming a walkway, a pathway between these two halves. And then what happens next? something even stranger, a smoking fire pot and a torch passes through these two halves. We'll talk about the significance of that because indeed it is significant and it points to even a greater reality. But this process, this covenant ritual, it was pretty common in the ancient Near East. And even just the very fact, the cutting of the animals is very likely where they get the idea of making a covenant because it's cutting a covenant. The two parties, either themselves or representatives of these parties, would agree on these terms. And then either one or both would walk through the halves of the animals and they would say, essentially, if I don't uphold my end of the bargain, if I don't uphold my end of the deal, or in this case, the Lord is saying, if I don't uphold my promise, if I don't deliver what I've promised to you, May I be like these animals. May I be cut in half. May I be torn to pieces. This is how sure God is that he will deliver the promise. He's not going to back down. He's not going to back away. He's given the guarantee that upon death, he will guarantee that the promise will be fulfilled. As we see, throughout Abram's life, it is God who is acting. It is God in his grace who is contracting this covenant. He's the one who called Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans. He's the one who himself walks through those pieces in Theophany as a flaming torch in the smoking fire pot. It's God alone. There's nothing that Abram's done. He's passive in this whole process. It's not his work. It's not his merit. It's only his faith that God will deliver what he has promised. But as we read through the rest of the story, we see that these promises aren't fulfilled overnight. Already it's been a long time. It's probably been close to ten years. It'll probably be about ten more years before Abram even sees the first hope of this promise, when his own son is born. But indeed, over time, these promises were fulfilled. You know the story of the slavery of Israel in Egypt and how for 400 years they were enslaved, working for the Egyptians. But yet, they were delivered. They were brought out of the land. And they were brought out with great possessions. And not only so, but by Joshua's leadership, they were brought into the promised land, conquering it, cleansing it, making it their home. God delivers on his promises. He makes good on what he told Abram. And for many evangelical Christians, the story stops there. End of story. Promises fulfilled. But is there nothing more to this story in Genesis 15? Is there nothing more than thousands of children, hundreds of Israelites, and a little strip of land in the Middle East? A piece of land that, even in the last couple of days, former dictators have said, Palestine is Arab. Is there nothing more to this promise than this earthly, literal fulfillment? Well, if you've grown up in this church, I hope you're screaming, Yes, there is! There's so much more. So as we look to the New Testament, as we let Scripture interpret Scripture, we'll see that indeed, this covenant of promise is meritoriously consummated by Christ. Now, boys and girls, what I mean by that is that Christ, by His work, by His life, by His death, by His resurrection, completes, fulfills, brings about the promise of God. Because it's not just an earthly temporary promise. It's not just the land of Israel. It's not just children of Abram by blood. No. It's an eternal promise and an eternal inheritance. There's three passages in the New Testament that we'll be looking at specifically as they help us interpret this. But just to round out the story here, Abram's been given these promises. He has a son. A great nation is born. And it's through that nation that Christ was born. It's through that lineage, through that genealogy, through those families that Christ was born some 2,000 years ago. And by that, the promise given even before the promise given to Abraham, the promise of the gospel in Genesis 3.15 is fulfilled in Christ. The promised seed. In Genesis 3.15, we see just the start, the promise of redemption, an inkling of what's going to happen. In Genesis 15, we see that seedling start to sprout and to germinate. We don't see the whole picture yet, but we see things starting to develop. We see a little bit more of the picture. And as we go through the rest of this sermon, we'll see indeed that at very bottom, this promise to Abram is in fact an administration of the covenant of grace. The promises given to Abram are the same promises that have been given to us. So why, as we look at this story in Genesis 15, did God himself have to walk through those pieces of the animals? Why did that smoking fire pot and that flaming torch have to pass through these bloody halves of carcasses? It was because sin stood in the way of the deliverance of these promises. God could not deliver on these promises because the internal inheritance that was promised could only be received by those who are righteous. Could only be received by those who are holy. And yet, since the fall, all mankind is stuck in misery, tainted by sin, completely, utterly depraved. So, a sacrifice is needed. And yet, we know that the sacrifice of these bulls and these calves could not atone for sin. So, by God walking through or passing through those halves, points forward to the sacrifice of Christ, points forward to the reality that God himself is taking upon the curse so that he may deliver the promise. Indeed, there was no other way for Abram and his descendants to take hold of these promises than for Christ to come as a man, to bear the wrath of God, to be cut, to be cut off from the land of the living so that we might reap the benefits, so that we might receive our inheritance. You see, for Christ, He comes and He has to work for our salvation. He's got the work of redemption to accomplish. But for us, just as Abram received the promise of God by faith, just as he laid hold of the promises of God, just by believing that God would do it, So it is with us. We don't have to work for our salvation. We don't have to strive to accomplish all the law. No, it's been completed in Christ. He's done it. We are called to believe. So these ritual cuttings, the cuttings of the animals in Genesis 15, circumcision in Genesis 17, the offering up of Isaac in chapter 22, these are all cutting rituals. Covenant signs that point forward to Christ and how he is the ultimate sacrifice. He is the child of promise through whom we lay hold of the promises of God. And here we'll turn to the New Testament to see how Paul, especially, and the author of the Hebrews, shows us what this really means. Because Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, We, too, can only look to God. There's nothing we can do. Turn to Galatians 3, if you will, New Testament. Galatians 3, we'll read a couple verses. You heard some already. But we'll look at some more here now. Galatians 3, 6 through 9. Consider Abraham. He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand then that those who believe are children of Abram. The scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abram. All nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. And jump down to verses 26 to 29 also. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. It's not by law. It's by faith that we lay hold of these promises. It's by faith that we are counted among Abram's descendants. It's by faith that we look to the hope, the reality of an eternal inheritance, one that we have already, one that we have just a taste of, even as we have the Holy Spirit. But yet there is so much more to come, isn't there? Look at a couple more verses here. Just talking about this law and the gospel distinction. Elders, as you've been charged today, you've been charged for the duty of upholding, maintaining the purity of doctrine. This is one of the debates that's raging today. It's about justification. How are we justified before the Lord? Is it by faith or works or faith in works? Through these passages we learn, we see even as it was with Abraham, we are justified by faith. And so, Paul, as he's writing his letters, says, you know, the promises were received by faith. The law came 400 some years later. Look at Galatians 3, 17 and 18. I hope you stayed there. What I mean is this, Paul writes, the law introduced 430 years later does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise. But God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. The promise that we have is received by faith. Look also at Romans chapter 4. If you want some reading this afternoon, read all of Romans 3 and 4 and Galatians 3. They'll help you really understand the passage. But for sake of time, since we have the installation and ordination, we better keep moving. But Romans 4, 13 through 17. It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression. Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace. It may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring, not only to those who are of the law, that is Israel, the nation of Israel, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations. He is our Father in the sight of God, in whom he believed. The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Indeed, I hope this distinction is clear. Don't be deceived. You don't have to work for your salvation. You don't have to work to receive the promises of God. But all around us, that's what people are doing, isn't it? Our neighbors. You ask them how they're going to get to heaven. Well, I do good things. You know, I think my good deeds are going to outweigh my bad deeds. So in reality, they're working themselves to death. They're working themselves to death. Because by their works, they cannot receive life. Eternal life doesn't come through the law. It comes through promise. It comes by faith in that promise. So I ask you, at the end of this year, as you examine yourself and as you plan for the next year, are you working yourself to death? Are you trying by your own good works to merit salvation? By your good deeds to gain favor in God's sight? Or are you trusting in the promise of God? Like Abram, are you believing that these promises come only by faith in the one who has promised them? Well, you think, maybe there's a disconnect here. Abram was given this promise. He was given this promise of particular descendants in a particular land. God even put boundaries on it. He said, you will be given the land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. So how can you be talking about this as our eternal inheritance? How can this be the same thing? The truth is that Abraham himself was looking for more than just lots of little children and a little strip of land in the Middle East. Abraham himself knew that in order for him to be a blessing, there had to be something much greater than lots of children. And so we look to one more passage this morning. Turn with me, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11, 8 through 16. You all know that this is the great chapter of faith. And it's so well connected to the passage this morning. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. Look at verse 10. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. He was looking for something greater than this land of Israel. Continuing on in verse 11. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and countless as the sands on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on the earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Brothers and sisters, we are numbered among Abram's children if we believe the promise of God. We are his children by faith. And just as he looked to something greater than some physical inheritance, he looked to an eternal inheritance. An inheritance where he could really say that God himself was his very great reward. But for us today, again, as it's not necessarily a New Year's Eve service, but it just so happens that it falls in this way that as we look to a new year, as we face the blessings that it brings, but also the trials, the struggles, when we wonder if God is really going to come through on his promises, if God is really going to deliver to us the promised inheritance. We live in the gap. We live in the gap between the promise and the future reality. But God has given us something. To Abraham, he gave a sign. To us, He's given His Son. A Son that was born some 2,000 years ago. Born that we might have life. When we struggle in this life, we are to look to the promises of God. To lay hold of them through faith. When we waver, bring those concerns to the Lord. Go to Him in prayer. Don't resentfully doubt Him. But just like the man in Mark 4. He said, Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. Well, as we've seen in this passage, indeed, Abram was given a tremendous promise. We've seen the earthly fulfillment and we've started to see the eternal fulfillment of it. Even as we have seen Christ come, crucified, delivered, so that he might deliver unto us an eternal inheritance. The promise of redemption is indeed received by faith. No longer trust your own works. Look to the Lord. By faith, trust that he, by his Son, has delivered this promise to you. And don't get bogged down in this world. You know, we just had Christmas, lots of gifts, lots of things to rejoice in. But these are passing pleasures. They're fleeting in the scope of reality. There's a much greater promise, a much greater reality, a much greater hope, a much greater inheritance that we still look forward to. And elders again, and deacons too, as we look to this new year, As you visit the families, as you encourage them and pray for them. Pray that the Lord will help us all to look not just to this life, but the life to come. A life received by faith. A life where there are pleasures at God's right hand. A life that far outweighs any imagination that we could ever dream of. Any gift that we could hope of. The eternal life, the promises that were given to Abram are much greater than these. And they are ours by faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So that one day, we may take hold fully of this promise. That we may dwell in that eternal city. That we may live with our God. We may dwell in His presence. And that He may truly be our very great reward. Amen. Let us pray. Our dear Lord God and Holy Father, we come to you realizing that the promise that you have given to Abram was fulfilled by Christ and that the eternal promise of life is received only by faith, by your grace. Father, help us as a church to stand firm on these promises, to maintain the purity of the doctrine, but also to gain comfort that you are a God who delivers on his promises. You are a God who is a faithful Father and as such is able and willing to give us what we need in this troubled life. Father, we pray for your Spirit to strengthen our faith, to quell our fears and to calm our doubts. Lord, help us to look to you and to look to the eternal inheritance that we may one day have when Christ comes again. May we live this new year in the hope of the resurrection, looking for that eternal city that we may dwell with you for eternity. We pray this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.