FEB 27 2022 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S2E6 | Abraham

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain · "Abraham" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · February 27, 2022
Genesis 15:1-6
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hey, good morning, everybody. My name is Vinny. I'm one of the high school leaders. I work with Pastor Harry. And this morning, I'm going to be reading Genesis chapter 15, verses 1 through 6. God's covenant with Abram. 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 Elser of Damascus?

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.

The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. Right on. If you have your Bibles, turn with us to Genesis 15, 1 through 6. We're following Abraham through his journey of faith, and we come upon this week what can arguably be called one of the most important consequential scriptures in the entire Bible. It's definitely in the top five, in my opinion, and that's going to be Genesis 15, 6. You'll see it there. It's highlighted on your notes.

Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness. And this just basically means this, that righteousness doesn't come from anything you do. It comes from believing what God says, and that God is who he says that he is. And so that is where we see this happen today. Now, I want to begin the message by asking you a question. And the question is this. When, for you, is enough enough? When is enough enough?

When is enough enough? Have you gotten to the place where you feel like I don't need or want any more? In the 1980s, and I tend to circle back to the 80s probably more than I should, but seeing as all the teenagers have circled back to it, oddly, it seems real cool at this point. So thank you, teenagers, for realizing what I've known for a very long time, since 85. And there was this band that I love. It's one of my top three songs of all time.

It was Tears for Fears. Maybe you've heard of Tears for Fears. Picture of them and their album. And there was a song that they put up called Everybody, it's called Everyone Wants to Rule the World. Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Maybe you know that song. Now, you know this song has really broke through, one, because if I were to put it on, my 90-year-old mother, who says, oh, don't tell everybody how old I am, but whenever she introduces herself, tells everybody how old she is.

But nonetheless, if I put this song on, my mom will sing along to it. Now, if my 14-year-old is in the car and this song comes on, she will sing along to it as well, as well as their 52-year-old father. Now, that is when a song has actually transcended. The song makes an incredible declaration. It says this, and it might probably isn't true, but it's true in a lot. Everyone wants to rule the world. And so the question for you is, in regard to having more, when is enough enough?

Obviously, on the geopolitical stage right now, as you see what's happening in the world, obviously, for some people, enough is not enough. Now, I believe this, that if I were to give each of you a pad of paper, just say it's 60 pages, one of those college notebook binders, and I were to send you away for a week, and I said, I want you to fill this notebook with everything you want, with everything that you believe that if you got that, you would be incredibly happy.

And I can guarantee you, whatever you put in the, it's like a magic notebook, whatever you put in the notebook, you will have exactly what you want. At the end of that month, you would come back, and it would be filled with perhaps a house, or a spouse, or your book got published, or you had all the money you wanted, or the grass is greener than you expected, you know, that you wanted. It's always greener on the other side, but you made it to that side of the grass.

I want to assure you one thing about that 50 pages you wrote. I guarantee you, within less than 12 months, you would look at that list, and you would be wanting something different, or more. You see, there's something about our wanters, they are insatiable. And no matter what we get, it never, at least in the horizontal terms of the world, it will never make you happy. We see this over and over again with people who have all these incredible things, but they are never content with what they have.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon said this. Now, Solomon was the richest, wisest, he had more territory. Perhaps they said he has a worth of $2 trillion in today's terms. The richest person to ever walk the face of the earth, the wisest person, God's presence. And he ends up at the end of his life writing this book about, oh my goodness, what am I supposed to do with all this? Like, enough is never enough. Like, you know, he's just meaningless, meaningless is what he says.

But he says this in Ecclesiastes 1.8. It says, the eye never has enough of seeing. So let me just set the ball, if I was a volleyball player, set the ball for you right now, and ask you this question. When is enough enough for you, and do you know what you want, and will it ever be enough? Go to verse 1. God comes, and he makes this incredible declaration. It says, after this, verse 1, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision.

Let's stop right there. I love that God is seeking him out. And God will often seek you out. But one of the things I want to say is that the more you put yourself in a position to be in front of the freight train of God's love, mercy, and word, the more you will hear from God, meaning if you read the scripture, you will hear from God more than if you don't. I regularly have people come into the office. They say, God never speaks to me.

And I will say, well, did you read your Bible? Well, no, not really. Well, let's start with Eric. You know, so often we want that vision that Abraham has here. But God actually has a better plan at the moment. It actually says that the Holy Spirit will dwell within us. And God wants to speak to us now from the inside out. He does speak to us through the Bible, but it is the Holy Spirit that transcends that. And so, one, when it comes to even knowing what you want or where you're going in your life, one, are you putting yourself in a position to hear from God?

If you sit and ask the Lord to speak, if you pray, these things will open that up. And so God comes to him in a vision, and he says three incredible statements. Let me just show you these three statements. Pretty solid. Now, if God came to you and said this, first of all, don't be afraid. That shows that there's a fear. God is not coming to someone who doesn't have any fear and saying, don't be afraid. Abraham has showed.

He's even lied a few times because he's been afraid for one reason or another. He did have the courage last week to go against four or five different kings and battle those kings. And he stood up and he picked a fight with someone who was unjust. But he must be afraid. And it's because God wouldn't say, don't be afraid, if there was no reason to be afraid or if the person wasn't afraid. Let's stop right there and let's ask you this.

Are you afraid? And do you believe that God will care for you? Because I do believe that probably the biggest driver in people making wrong decisions or living in a life that has a trajectory away from the love of God has to do with fear. Now, when I was three and a half years old, my mom came to me. This is when my dad left. It was the first time he left and the last time he left. He left our home when we were three and a half for one reason or another.

And when my father did that, I remember my mom pulled me aside. This is her story. She tells me. And she said I asked her this question. What did I do wrong? Right. Now, for a three and a half year old, that is a question that a three and a half year old should not be having to deal with. But it happens when you have destabilization. When there's destabilization, destabilization brings fear. Fear brings panic. It says that perfect love in the scripture casts out all fear.

One of the reasons you're seeing so much fear and panic in the world is because many children are experiencing what I experienced. My mom also told me. She goes, I remember from the time you were like five years old, six years old, you would get on your bike and you would just be gone. Why? Why was I gone? The reason I was gone is because home wasn't stable and I was going to get it from here. I'll take this from here.

So as a three and a half year old, I'm like, okay, I got this. I don't need any more of that. Can't trust this situation. I got this from here. For something had happened in Abram's life where God comes to him and he says, look, you don't have to live in that paradigm. You don't have to live in that paradigm. You do not have to live in fear. Now, it would be great if Abraham said right after that statement that I believe you and it was counted to him as righteousness.

But he doesn't. Now, I want you to do something in your notes real quick. Go down to verse six in your notes. I want you to circle verse six and I want you to take an arrow and draw an arrow and make verse six verse two. So draw it to verse two. I want to make the hypothesis that Abraham believing God came too late in the story. That Abraham believing God should have actually been after verse one. We'll get to that in a moment because Abraham ended up believing, but he didn't believe the first thing that God said.

We'll talk about that in just a second. And so I guess the first question I have to you, if God comes to you and he says, do not be afraid. Why? And he gives a metaphor. He says, because I am your what? Shield. God is a shield. I would say that the Bible promises you, not that you won't have bad times and hard times. It says that the bad times fall on the head of the righteous and the unrighteous. We live in a broken, fallen world.

But that God promises to you that I am your shield. Now, let's put yourself in the position of Abraham. Do you believe that? I mean, do you believe it in your heart? You will know it in your heart. And you will know when panic and fear start leaving your life and you start extricating fear and panic and depression and these things from your life. Obviously, there are chemical issues and some people have those issues.

I totally get that. But I have found that much, not all, much of the emotional distress that I see comes from a place of want, lack, and fear. And as they would call it in the scripture, an orphan spirit. And so we see that here that God is saying, I am your shield. Now, I guess the question is deep down, deep, I mean, way deep, like 25 layers deep. Do you believe that? That God is your shield and you don't need to be afraid?

This is an incredible question that if we can get to the end of, because it says, if we understand how much God loves us, the scripture says, perfect love does what? It casts out all fear. And so if we understand that God is there. So he comes to him and says this. And then he says one more thing that is really, really interesting. He says, don't be afraid, Abram. I am your shield and your what? He says, I'm your very great reward.

This is an amazing statement because what God is saying to Abraham is there's all these other things you could have in your life. But I want you to know that I am giving you myself. So imagine God taking his entire being and saying, granted, there's the whole land I've promised you. There's all these other things I've promised you. And you're going to get that. And you have this purpose. And I'm going to have you be the father of many nations.

And on and on. But he says to him, but besides all that, I want you to know that I'm scooping out myself, the very essence of eternity. And this is your reward. I'm giving you eternity. Why? Because I'm giving you me. I'm giving you eternal hope. I'm giving you eternal peace. I'm giving you eternal grace. I'm giving you eternal justice. I'm giving you all of these things. It is your reward. So we see that he offers that.

And he offers it to Abraham. It's interesting. He says, I'm your reward. Abraham has promised an eternal inheritance, God himself. So how does Abraham respond? Well, obviously, Abraham says, you know what, God? I believe that. And it says that God credited it to him as righteousness. No, that's not what Abraham says. Abraham says this. Go to verse 2 and 3. But Abraham said, circle the word, but. Really important word.

Abraham said, but Abraham said, sovereign Lord, what can you give me? Circle that like seven times. Since, I've got to tell you the conditions of my life. I'm childless. And the one who will inherit my state is Eleazar of Damascus. I don't like him very much. And Abraham said, you've given me no children. So a servant in my household will be my heir. Abraham doesn't respond with verse 6. Abraham should have responded with verse 6.

We'll get to that. Abraham responds with a conjunction. Conjunctions are very important in your life. But, because, if, whenever you have something that happens in your life, you come up and it's negative or difficult or even positive. There is a conjunction that can go there. It could be, you know, Adam went straight ahead, but because of his fear, he ran straight into a wall because of his fear and was paralyzed with fear and stopped.

Or, this incredible thing happened that should have caused Adam fear, but because he relied on God, he sidesteps it. There was a fork in the road, a self-created fork in the road. And Adam went a different direction. Put your name in here. I want to say, you can create forks in the road with the conjunctions of your life on a regular basis. This happened, but Chris did this. This would have happened if Sonia wouldn't have made this decision.

You can create this conjunction. The conjunction that Abram presents to God is not a conjunction that I think really honors God. Now, this is my commentary. I've never read this. This is just my individual commentary on this. But he says, what can you give me? Abraham responds with one of the most consequential conjunctions in the word of God, but. And I would say this. Obviously, God himself was not enough for Abraham at that point.

Now, by verse 6, he gets it because you have this incredible verse. We'll get to verse 6 where it says God believed him. I mean, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. But let me just tell you what this would be like. This would be like, imagine yourself 100 years ago or whatever it would be. And a husband coming to a woman and saying, I just, I love you. You can do it the other way around if you want a woman coming to a man or whatever.

But a husband, a man coming up and saying, I want to marry you. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever imagined. You're amazing. I love you. I would love to come alongside of you as we protect one another. But I want to protect you as well and stand up for you and all this. And you know what? I want to give you all that is me. I want to give you my heart, my soul, my being, everything that is me. I give it to you.

And she goes, oh, that's amazing. But just real quick about that dowry. I just, seriously, because my father-in-law has been talking about that dowry. And there's some property. And this happened in England all the time. That would be so insulting, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it? I mean, you can put it the other way around if you want. How insulting would it be if you offer all of yourself and you're like, well, what about that jaguar you promised me or those rings on the finger or something like that?

He says to God, let's just get this straight. And by the way, I feel like I do this on a regular basis. After this, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in the vision. Do not be afraid. I am your shield. I am your very great reward. Full stop. But, but, Abraham said, sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless? I wrote in the notes, a sign of spiritual maturity is when our never-ending list of but God, what can you give me, shrinks to contain only the line, God, you're all I need.

You see, there is nothing on this horizontal plane that will ever fulfill you. We can give you everything you want. I have met so many people that have gotten to the top of the mountain and the only question they have next is, what mountain do I climb next? There is nothing. And God knows this. And so God offers himself. So when I go back, let's go back to the beginning of the sermon. Let me set that ball up to you and see if you're going to spike it or not.

Because the ball up in the air says this, what is enough for you? And is God enough for, is it enough? Is God enough if you don't write your book? Is God enough if you don't win the race? Is God enough if you don't get to dance your dance? If God is enough if you don't get to have the child that you always have been dreaming about having or the spouse that you want to have or the financial number that is important to you, is God enough?

Is God enough when disease comes? Is God enough when suffering comes? When you're falsely accused like many have been and put into prison, is God still enough? We live in this Christian idea that if, you know, that God is enough when we get the rest. And this is where Abraham is. We often spend more time thinking about what we don't have instead of enjoying what we do. One of the things I said on a regular basis, if you want to be happy and joyful, I've said it over and over.

I'm going to keep saying it. Want less. Want more of God. Just want less. I have, you know, you think about, you hear people on a regular basis, I just want a bigger yard for my kids. If we just get a bigger yard so my kids can play. You haven't taken your kid to the park for six weeks. Like, what makes you think you're going to play in the backyard? The yard isn't going to fix it. What's going to fix it is having a value that says the thing that's most important is spending time with my kid.

Not this thing that we have to chase. And so Abraham is like, God, I appreciate it. That's awesome that you're giving me all of eternity. But what about that land you promised me and the inheritance and all this other stuff? Now, let me just say this. God is not adverse to those things. God wants to dance your dance with you. He wants to sing your song with you. He wants to make that jump shot with you. God wants to do all of those things.

He's excited about it. He created it in a material world for a reason. And maybe you're a material girl. Sorry, back to the 80s. So good. Thank you, Chris. God created a material. He wants us. He wants to bless the physical. But we can't, like I said, you can't start with the physical and back yourself into the righteousness. It says righteousness comes through believing. And it says that blessing crowns the head of the righteous.

You don't get blessing without being righteous. And righteous isn't because of what you do. It's because of what you believe. And then what you do follows what you believe or you don't believe it. And then it says after that, God blesses the things you have and the things that you do. That blessings crown the head of the righteous. We see that for Abraham, he was getting it backwards. God is so grace-filled, though. Let's go to verse 4.

God shows up in grace. I think God should have said, you know what? That's totally insulting. And you know what? Forget the promise. I'm done with you. I'm done with you. You know what God says instead? This is what God says. And God is so patient. In verse 4, then the word of the Lord came to him. This is the second time. This man will not be your heir, but a son who is of your own flesh and blood will be your heir.

He took him outside and he said, look up and count the stars, if indeed you can count them. Then he said, this shall be your offering. There's a picture of the stars right there. What I love in this scripture is that he basically said to Abraham, hey, bro, I got to give you a bigger picture. You know, God didn't have to take him outside. When God does something in scripture, it's for a reason. It could have said, he could have started outside in the vision.

Hey, we're going to start outside. I mean, if you're going to set this vision up, right? You know, like these picnic dates they have for people and it's all set up now and they're all over the place. If you were going to set this up and you were God, wouldn't you be on top of a mountain with no like, you know, light pollution or anything? You'd be all ready. You'd have those stars already. No, that starts inside, obviously, because he takes them outside.

So God intentionally did something. You know what he said to do? Stop navel gazing, bro. Get your eyes up to something bigger. Sometimes we get tunnel vision, but rarely are good decisions made when suffering from tunnel vision. The definition of tunnel vision is the constriction of our visual field resulting in the loss of peripheral vision. It is rarely are good decisions made when we're suffering from tunnel vision or the constriction of the visual field resulting in a loss of peripheral vision.

Sometimes we get so focused on that shiny thing. We're golem with the ring. And some of those things are important. Like God understands the thing that he was focusing on is the thing that God had promised him way back at the beginning of this message series. God didn't forget about it. But he's so focused on the promise that he's lost the promiser. You see, the promise isn't the most important part. The promiser, because without the promiser, you don't have the promise.

And so he looks up and basically what he's ended up doing is he's not shooting far enough. One of my favorite basketball players, my daughter and I play basketball. There's Tim Duncan. There's a picture of Tim Duncan being guarded there by Paul Millsap. Tim Duncan is arguably one of the, I will say not even arguably, he's the greatest forward of all time. There's Larry Bird as well. Tim Duncan, his old man game is just something to be admired.

It's just slow. He's just going to kill you with kindness. You know what I mean? Just such a beautiful player. So soft spoken. I've been talking to my daughter. We're working on her old man game. Now she's 14 years old, but there's just something about that fadeaway and that old man game. We were working yesterday. We're taking shots yesterday. And we're having a free throw shooting contest after we had leg day. Never skip leg day.

And so the problem is, is when you have leg day, you end up oftentimes hitting the front of the rim. Why? Because you don't have enough strength in your core and in your balance. And so they call that undershooting. When we were walking away, this is what I said to her. And she said, her coach said the same thing. I said, you will never make a shot where you undershot it. If you overshoot, you will sometimes make the shot.

It'll hit the backboard. It'll go in. You will never make a shot that you undershoot. I'm not talking about over-revving your life in all situations. What I am saying is if you were tunnel vision, focus on just one little thing, and you don't step out and see a larger perspective that's bigger than the one thing that you're focusing on, you're going to be undershooting your whole life. She said, my coach told me, I'll also never make a shot I didn't take.

You will miss every shot you never took. God takes him outside for a reason. And maybe you need to go outside. Maybe tonight, make a date with yourself. Go outside and say, you know what? I need to look at something. I need to look up. It was funny. This week, there was some really big things, some really heavy big things going on in people's lives that were really weighing me down. And then there was a whole bunch of petty things.

And when I realized the suffering that are going on in people's lives, when I see refugees fleeing all over the world, when I see all this thing happen, and then there's all this petty stuff, I have about, if I could do it inverted, I would, this much margin for pettiness. My own pettiness also. I mean, I realize sometimes, that's so petty. Why am I being so petty? I just lose more and more. And you know what it is? It's because I'm focusing here.

Oh, the church, we've got to have this, and we've got to make sure that the food's good for this, and we've got to make sure that, and this, and all these little things. And God's like, hey, there's bigger things happening in the world right now. Things that are larger, that we want to care about people, and just getting that vision to come up. He took them outside, and rarely are good decisions made when we're in tunnel vision.

Let's go to verse 6, and we'll close the sermon. Abraham finally believes in verse 6. Now, at the beginning of the sermon, I ask you to take an arrow, and put the arrow up to verse 2, because verse 6 should be verse 2. It says this in verse 6. Let me go to verse 5. He took them outside and said, look up and see the sky, count the stars, if indeed you can count them. Then he said to them, so shall be your offspring shall be.

Abraham believed the Lord, and he credited to him as righteousness. I want to say this, Abraham gets the answer right, finally, but he got the timing wrong. Now, God is still a graceful God, that he's not bound to our timing. And God had this incredible grace. Abraham got there late. He got there late to the party, because this is what it should say. After this, verse 1, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision.

He said, do not be afraid, Abraham. I'm your shield. I'm your very great reward. Then skip to verse 6. Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness. You see, let's go back to the beginning. When is enough enough? And is God enough for you? Is God enough for you? Unless God is the primary mover in all your wants and desires, where it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God, Matthew 6, 10, and all what, these things will be added to you, you will never be happy.

You will never find joy. You will never find contentment. Although there's so many Christian books about your incredible purpose in your life, that if you just find the needles point, and you can balance on there really good, and you find the perfect place, the perfect job, the perfect spouse, the perfect everything you want, because there's lots of Christian books that will tell you this. They're out there because they sell.

Well, because it promises you peace without God, kind of. What it says is, once you get into that place, and you can discern God's will, and you can stand there and balance it, don't fall off. Then you will have joy, peace, patience, happiness, all of the things Jesus promised you without any of that. You will have everything. I want to say, if you can get to the place where God is saying this, look, my love is a deep mine of consolation.

Do you want to take time from the distractions and go into the mind and to the depths of the pressure where the diamonds are created and spend time with God? If you want to feast upon me, I will put you to a place of contentment. I will put you to a place where that desire is fulfilled. It can be fulfilled in no other place. Abraham finally gets it. He got it late, but he did get it. And we're going to see by the end of the story, got a couple more weeks, and then we'll start again next year with the part two of this series.

We're going to see that he actually figures it out where all it is is God. I want to encourage you to take a list of your wants and then see what is essential. What are your essential needs? Because the list of essential needs is different than the list of essential wants. Because there's no such thing oftentimes as an essential want unless it is a want for God. Amen? Let's stand if you would. I want to pray for you and bless you today.

If you need prayer, there's going to be a sign over there. And it's going to come up here. And you're going to have a prayer team that's going to come forward. They're going to have little name badges on. They want to pray for you. If you need prayer today, you need someone, you want to pray for someone, come forward. We want to pray for you. This is our prayer area. It's no more holy than the cafe, but it is where we pray.

So come hang out there. If you want to know about how to follow Jesus, we had many people receive Jesus in the last few months. Some even standing back there at the Next Steps table. Or you want to get plugged in and involved, find out about our church. That's the Next Steps table. You can check that out. I'm going to bless you. And if you just want some free coffee and donuts, then go to the cafe. If you extend your hands, I want to bless you with this blessing.

Lord, I bless these people. With Abram, you said, whoever you bless, I will bless. Yes. And so, God, I choose to bless these people. In a world full of curses, we want to bless you. I bless you with the shield of God. Lord God, that they would say, I believe you. I don't care what the circumstances are. I don't care about what's happening in the world. I don't care about all this stuff. I believe you. You said you're going to be my shield.

You're going to be my protector. I believe you. God, I pray that you would give them the righteousness that comes with that belief. And I pray that you would give them the blessing that crowns the head of the righteous. Systematic. We bless you with God's shield. We bless you with his protection. We bless you, most of all, with his presence. You say to them that I give you myself as a reward. I pray that the reward of God, you will meet it this week, that it will be enough for you.

That it will be enough for you. That God is enough. And you say, God, I don't need any more. And then see what happens from there. We bless you. We send you out now into a world of chaos, into a world of choppy seas, to be a ballast that brings life and peace and grace and joy to a world that is longing to know him. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. We love you. We'll see you soon. Thank you.

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