God Will Come Through / People of Promise

 Abrahamic – Foundational Promises
Genesis 12,15,17 & Hebrews 6  October 2, 2022 - Communion    

1. Introduction:
   1. The foundation of a building not only supports the weight of the structure but also determines the shape of it!
      1. The Abrahamic covenant is the foundation that not only supports the entire covenant program of God but also is the foundation that gives shape to the story of the Bible, what God is doing in this world – past present and future and ultimately in our own lives.  
      2. The better you understand covenants, the better you understand the Bible!  A synonymous word to covenant is testament.  New and Old Testament = new and old covenant!
   2. A covenant is the strongest word in any language to express and define relationships. 
      1. It is a solemn binding agreement between two parties, which provides a clear statement of how they will relate to one another with promises being made, and conditions agreed upon!
      2. The blood sacrifice required in a covenant indicates that they are permanent until one of the parties dies and is broken only under the penalty of death! 
   3. We are doing a series we are calling people of promise as we look at the promises that God has bound himself to by means of the solemn and serious means of covenants.  Promises that drive the story of God, the Bible and our lives!
2. The promises in the Abrahamic covenant
   1. There are five main promises that God made in the covenant with Abraham.   
      1. Land – actual dirt, ground, soil that would become their property. 
      2. Seed – a people, a nation, a lineage, descendants, children, offspring 
      3. Blessing – benefits God would bestow upon them
      4. In your seed all the nations will be blessed.
      5. God will be their God 
   2. Let’s start by reading where God first makes promises in Genesis 12:1-3 and then we see them progressively developed in chapters to come!   Read.
   3. I want to show you each of these promises one at a time.
      1. Land – an actual geographical piece of earth.
         1. Genesis 12:5-7 – fact
         2. Genesis 13:14-15 – forever
      2. Seed – descendant, offspring, children, the nation of people! 
         1. Fact - Genesis 12:2,7
         2. Numerous – Genesis 13:16, 15:5
      3. Blessing 
         1. Fact – Genesis 12:2-3
         2. Clarification – we see here and as the Scripture continues to unfold that God’s plan right from the beginning was to bless Abraham, the nation of Israel and the entire world!   
      4. In your seed all the nations will be blessed.  
         1. Read Genesis 12:3c: Genesis 22:18
         2. As we learn in Galatians 3, a few weeks ago, in Jesus, the ultimate seed of Abraham all the nations will be blessed and we get in on these promises because we belong to him.
      5. God will be their God -   
         1. Before God set up the covenant of circumcision, he reviewed with Abraham the promises he had already made by means of covenant to him and adds a few extra here.  
            1. Read Genesis 17:2-8  
            2. Not only a seed and land but he adds three more things here
               1. Father of a multitude of nations
               2. Kings will come forth from him
               3. God will be their God – both to Abraham and his descendants/seed 
         2. This is a key promise of this covenant and the whole covenant program!
            1. Note in Exodus 6:5-8 what God tells Moses when he reassures him regarding what he had promised in his covenant with Abraham.  Read
            2. This phrase is used ten times referring to the new covenant and is used to summarize the heart of the new covenant in the New Testament.  Hebrews 8:10 
   4. We see many of these put together when God confirmed the covenant with Jacob.   Read Genesis 28:13-15
   5. The heart of the Abrahamic covenant promises:  a land, seed, blessing and God being their God drives the stories behind the formation of the nation and the entrance into the Promised Land as seen from Genesis all the way to Joshua! 
      1. It is the why behind all these stories and the thread that ties them together.
      2. By the way, “promised land” is a term we have heard for years and even is in songs we sing–– it was the land promised to Abraham as an inheritance for his descendants in the Abrahamic covenant.  

• Note 

1.   The weight of the Abrahamic covenant
   1. Turn to Genesis 15 where we see these promises being made into a covenant.  
   2. The reason for the covenant was to give assurance to Abraham that God was going to fulfill his promises to him.     Listen to Genesis 15:7-8 – How may I know?
   3. Now we see God responding by making his promises into a covenant.  
      1. Read v9-10
      2. We learned last week that this is the procedure of a covenant
      3. Note that it only takes one animal to sacrifice to make it legitimate but this covenant is so big that God has three animals sacrificed
   4. Now as I read the details of this covenant I want you to notice who goes through the middle of the sacrificial animals and who does not.   
      1. Read 12-18 – know for certain.
      2. God alone went through the pieces of the sacrifice in the form of a smoking oven and smoking torch while Abraham was asleep
      3. The covenant was made with Abraham, not Israel.  The existence of Israel  the seed, descendants, the family line from Abraham, was one of the promises, provisions of the covenant
   5. That made this covenant an unconditional covenant where God bound himself under the curses of a covenant, the death penalty for breaking them, regarding the promises he was going to do for Abraham.
      1. This covenant places no conditions upon Abraham but only upon God himself!
2. Communion
   1. Turn to Hebrews 6 where he picks up on the theme of Genesis 15 and shows us that God made these promises into a covenant not only to assure Abraham that he would do what he promised.  Also, to assure the Jews living at that time and you and me as believers who are also in on these promises through Jesus!   
      1. Now before we look at this passage remember it was written about 35 years after Jesus ascended back into heaven as the writer was assuring these Jewish readers that the Abrahamic promises/covenant were still a sure future hope they could build their lives upon like an anchor for their souls.
         1. They were not something that have been spiritually fulfilled with the church now because of Israel’s disobedience or rejection of the Messiah. Rather it was a hope they could look forward to!  
      2. Read v13-20 - v18 – two unchangeable things, promise and covenant
      3. The reason for the covenant is three fold
         1. To show the recipients of the promise unchangeableness of his purpose. 
            1.  God is going to raise up a people for himself! He is going to be their God! He is going to give them the land! He is going to bless them!
         2. We might have strong encouragement
         3. Gives us a hope that is sure enough to be an anchor for our soul.
   2. We, the church, along with Israel have the hope and look forward to all these covenant promises going into effect when God fulfills them with Israel and us in the future when Jesus returns.  
3. Communion 
   1. I want to speak for just a moment regarding the promise of blessing.
      1. While the Mosaic, Deuteronic and the new covenants detail out more of what that blessing will look like.
   2. I want to close with how the New Testament helps us further understand that blessing.
      1. Turn to Acts 3 and read v25-26   
         1. What we see here that ultimately the promise of Abraham’s seed blessing of all the families of the earth is the blessing of salvation and the deliverance from the power of sin in their lives.
      2. We see this again in Galatians 3:8-9 – turn and read 
         1. We see here that God actually preached the gospel to Abraham in this promise
      3. Read Galatians 3:13-14 – the blessing of Abraham was so the Gentiles might also receive the promise of the Holy Spirit.
         1. Interesting to note that the promise of receiving the Holy Spirit was not given until the new covenant, which further explains the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant.
   3. So every person in this room who knows Jesus personally on the basis of faith has experienced the covenant promise of Genesis 22:18.  Both the blessing of salvation and the blessing of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
   4. As you go to communion would you thank God for including us and thank Jesus for dying for us so we can experience the promised blessings to Abraham and for the hope of what we still have to look forward to!