Whereby Shall I Know? - Part II

We're back in Genesis 15, and I wanna come at this again, and I wanna look at, the first of these questions that I introduced to you last week. 

last week as we worked our way through the kinda introductory- Framework to this passage. the point that I was trying to communicate is that God had sovereignly decreed to Abraham what the future was going to look like. God promised him a land, God promised him descendants, and God promised a blessing. 

all three of those specific realities are fulfilled in the person and work of Christ. And while to be a recipient of great promises is fantastic, is it not to just be... That God would choose to bless you in such a way, to give you so- such a wonderful future and all these great promises that are connected to him. 

While being a recipient of those promises is fantastic, waiting on them to become a reality is agony. Now maybe, you know, you're like, "Well, you know, give yourself something to focus on and keep working through it, and you'll be all right." Well, yeah, but sometimes God brings you to the place where you realize that there's nothing you can do to make what God has determined a reality. 

I've been thinking about, since I got the news about Matt Lockreman's dad, I've been thinking about heaven a lot. Really, our whole hope and salvation is on the fact that we have taken Jesus Christ at his word Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the Father but by him." 

If you have heard his word and responded by placing your faith on him as Savior, you, in a sense, have leaned your whole weight upon his claim. Everything that he promised, you have put yourself on him. And so the performance of when you take your last breath, waking up and being with him and with the Father, it's all riding on one concept: faith. 

It's faith. And that is what Abraham is wrestling with. So it's not that Abraham doesn't know the destination. He knows that. He knows what God has promised. He is like you and I, where he cannot see how what God has promised is going to come into a reality. So last week, we saw that sovereignty tells us where the story ends, but it is God's providence that brings the conclusion of the story into reality. 

Therefore, we must trust God's providence, though we cannot see the path. We're just walking one step after another. Last Sunday, we took off and went and looked at that property over there. It's, it's great. We pulled up. We had a van full of kids, and we pulled up, and a lot of folks were already there, and Vaya reached over, slapped me, and said, "Jake, look how exciting this is. 

Look at all the people around the pro-" And she was exactly right because it's just amazing, and we're excited for what God has done in giving us this, and we're, we're looking forward to what, how it's gonna become a reality that one day when you come to church, you won't be coming to the shopping center. 

You go to the warehouse. Looking forward to that, right? Somebody's gonna be that person that shows up still at the shopping center and wonders where everybody's at. Maybe we'll do, like, a month-long live stream here. You know, I don't know. We'll put signs on the door for you. but at the end of the day, how all that becomes a reality, I don't know. 

I believe God's put something in our hand for, as a church family, to trust him, that he's gonna prove himself every step of the way. But there's a lot of steps in that. There's a lot that we can't see. There's way more questions than answers. So what do we do? We have to learn about God's providence. We have to learn about God's providence because if providence is his ability to bring into reality what he has promised, what he is doing, that's what it is. 

Now here in Genesis 15, Abraham is in the throes of this struggle And I showed you how he kind of came to it last week and the context that brought him here, and clearly, and we looked at verse number one, he is a man that is presently fearing. He is full of fear, and that's why God gave him the first fear not in the Bible. 

The first fear not is related to Abraham and his fear over these things that relate in this chapter. The chapter breaks out into two primary questions that are in response to what the Lord says to him. When the Lord says to him, "Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward," in verse number one, that prompts two questions in Abram. 

The first is in verse number two: "What will you give me, seeing I go childless?" The second is in verse number eight, where he asks the Lord, "Whereby shall I know that I will inherit it?" One of them relates to the promise regarding the seed. The other relates to the promise regarding the land. But in the process of looking at these things, they reveal to us what you and I need to understand about trusting God's providence when we can't see the path. 

Now, I can tell you, God has orchestrated how he works in our lives for dependence, not self-reliance. There is a reason we can only see one step at a time. Because if we could see farther in this, it would be room for us to glory, 'cause it wouldn't be about what God is revealing to us. It would be about our ability to see things. 

But God has worked in a way, and do-does work in a way, so that we have to take just one step, a trusting step at a time. Although this is in some way preparing us for the weeks and months, and who knows how long ahead as we prepare for a remodel again, and taking steps toward that, this is also very applicable to every stage of the lives you and I are living right now. 

If I told you, if I asked you pointedly, "How you doing trusting God's providence when you can't see the next step?" The right answer is, "Oh, yeah, we're trusting. Yeah, we're trusting. We're good." But you know in your heart when your knees shake because you just can't figure it out. You know the anxiousness that gets inside of you. 

You know the scheming and planning that you go through trying to manufacture what God can only do. I know it because I do it God has generously left us a text in the scripture that paints a picture of what happened when a man was dealing with a similar situation. So today, I wanna walk you through this, and we'll look at this first question in our time together, and I wanna frame it with this: Faith does not require us to understand how God will provide, only that he will bring about the end he has determined. 

Now, that's the sticking point, 'cause we want to see the how. If I could see the how, then I would be better at trusting the then, is what we think. But that's not how God o- not how God operates. He doesn't show you a plan. He doesn't give you more information. He does what he says in verse number one when he said, "I am your shield. 

I am your reward." What's he respond with? "Abram, I'm all you need. Look to me. Don't take your comfort from knowledge. Don't take your comfort from the plan all being laid out in front of you. Just put yourself in my hands." And that brings us to the real rub in the text we're gonna look at today. This first question brings this into focus, this question: What happens when God's promise requires provision completely absent from our lives? 

What do we do when what God is made clear to us is the step requires the material or the strength or whatever the attribute is, what do we do, how do we view this when what we need to accomplish the task is completely absent from our lives? I'm not just talking about you got a little bit and you're trying to stretch it. 

I'm talking about you are utterly unable to accomplish what is in front of you. That moment when you look at it and you're just so overwhelmed at the mountain, and you know I can't cross that 

What do you do? Well, that's where this first question takes us. Now notice in verse number two, Abraham poses this question. He says, "What will you give me, seeing I go childless?" Now notice the f- last part of this. What is Abraham really focused on? Here he's focused on the fact that, "God, you promised me descendants. 

You promised me a great nation to come from me." But I am presently still childless. I don't have what you have promised. Now remember, it's been 10 years. Talked to you about that last week. It's been 10 years since God promised something. Now, if God instituted a 10-year waiting period on the one thing in your life that you are really waiting on, you think it, by year 10 you'd be sitting there like, "Oh yes, I'm, I'm in." 

No, we'd be crumbling under the same pressure and fear that Abraham said, that I cannot make this. I go childless. There's nothing Abram can do to manufacture what God has promised. This brings him to understand his inadequacy. That is not something that we are very comfortable acknowledging. We do not like to acknowledge it. 

Matter of fact, we do all we can to cover our inadequacies. We go to great lengths to make sure that where we are weak is not on full display. But the beauty of how the Lord works is he purposely puts you in situations where your inadequacy is totally exposed. You know why that is? Because where does the credit go if you think it depends somewhat on you 

I said this last week, and I mean it. We can come together, and we can construct a building over there. We can build it out, and we can make it beautiful. This town is a testament to that. There's buildings all across this town that are beautiful. But the Lord was not in the process of... People weren't reverencing Him when they did it. 

They just did it. We could put a structure together, but God's not looking for a structure. He's not looking for something that would just pass building codes that can, you know, be a place for people to gather. He's looking for a place that's a tool in His hand to further His work. So the goal is not a building. 

The goal is the Lord and following Him. But at the end of the day, that building, this whole project, it's secondary. You know what the primary thing is? Our vision of God individually and collectively as a church because that's what we're going to build on that's gonna give us the faith to tell a community we didn't do this. 

God did it Let me tell you how to know him through his Son, Jesus Christ. Every day in our lives, we struggle with our own inadequacy. And truly, we can flip it on the other side, and we can fixate on our inqua- inadequacy so much that we paralyze ourselves. And we just say, "Well, I just can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it. 

I'm not able. I'm not able." And we fixate so much on our weakness that we neglect to look to God's strength. Other times, we run so bull in a China shop through life that we think, "I got it, I got it, I got it," and it's only when God touches something like he did with Jacob in the wrestling match or like he does with many of us when, I don't know, it's flat on your back for a couple weeks to remind you don't have this There is a reason that the Lord Jesus told the disciples one statement that absolutely reframes how you have to view living the Christian life. 

Jesus said, "Without me, you can do nothing." Now, we like to make a lot of nothing. Well, I can do this, I can do that, I can do this and that. But you and I can accomplish nothing apart from His strength. And if you can accomplish it is not worth doing It's his strength. Now, I think this is illustrated pretty well when you look at, Solomon's statement as he, comes in to become, take his father's position in becoming king of Israel. 

And in that interaction where ultimately the Lord's gonna say, "What," you know, "what do you want and I'll give it to you." But Abram, Solomon looks to the Lord and says, "I'm just a child. I don't even know how to go out or come in. I can't even perform the simplest task i- in this position you've given me. 

I'm utterly inadequate for me. It's utter- I'm utterly inadequate for it. You must enable me." That is the heart that we must have, not just toward the big things, the showy things, but to everyday living the Christian life. I can't do this on my own. And an amazing thing happens when you recognize that. God shows up You know, James tells us that God draws himself near to the humble But the believer who thinks they got it all figured out, he's well inclined to let them find out that they do not. 

But when his people humble themselves under his hand, oh, God comes running to their aid 

So we can't let s- inadequacy put us towards both ends of the bush. It must cause us to look to the Lord. Because the missing provision that Abraham identifies here in this, in verse number two, only points to the sufficiency of the provider. And that's how we have to view our inadequacy. It just shows us how great and good and powerful our God is. 

Now I want you to look at verse number three. Or verse number two, he continues and says this. he says, "Seeing I go childless and the steward of my house is this Eliezer." Verse three he continues, "Behold, to me you have given no seed and lo, one born in my house is mine heir." So what does Abram do when he recognizes his inadequacy? 

He comes up with a plan. He presents God with an option. Well, if there was ever a text that just identified and punched Jake Reed right in the face, let me just tell you that's it. Because as soon as I find what the inadequacy is, immediately there comes the scheme or the plan or the well-intended thing, the completely appropriate thing to address the inadequacy. 

What Abram offers here is completely culturally acceptable as a way to accomplish what God has promised. It was very common that when a man did not have a son, did not have the heir, he could then just make his servant that heir and pass on through that servant. It was completely adequate. It, matter of fact, it was actually full of grace to do something like that. 

But it was not, it was not God's purpose. It is in fact a reasonable solution, but it was not necessarily God's promised provision. Because whenever God's will requires a provision we do not possess, we are tempted to construct substitutes. How can we go about making this a reality? What can we do to help God along here? 

Did you, did you just cringe at that? What can we do to help God along here? Sit on our hands, keep our mouths shut and look to Him 

Say, well, we're supposed to get busy. Yeah, we're supposed to be busy doing what we're supposed to do, but we are not to go constructing substitutes to accomplish His will. Remember Proverbs 3:5-6? "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. And in all your ways acknowledge Him." 

And then what does it say? "He shall direct your paths." Well, that's interesting. I'm told three times, stop trying to do it my way. And if I stop trying to do it my way, then I'll be able to see God's way of doing it. Then I'll be able to look to Him. But that's not where we go to. But there is something positive here that Abram does at this point that he fails later. 

I want you to see it When you and I do construct our ideas for how to do it, the best place to take that idea is to the Lord. It's to the Lord. Because he doesn't immediately go acting on how to bring this into a reality, he first takes his idea to the Lord. Maybe he's been stewing on this for a while. 

It's been 10 years. He's been thinking about this for a while, and he finally brings it up to the Lord. "All right, Lord, I figured out a way how we can make this happen 

When you do come up with those plans, run them by the Lord before you start trying to run them out in your life When you don't run them by the Lord and give him the right of way first, and you just start trying to enact them, don't blame God for the corrective periods that come to your life. You know what happens the next chapter? 

Abraham and Sarah get impatient Abraham, through Sarah's, opening, Abraham marries a servant in the house so that they could manufacture an heir God was not pleased by their invention to accomplish His will. There followed a period of silence from God. Matter of fact, when it, the story picks up in Genesis 17, it's a whole different covenant that comes into place because God's saying, "We're not doing it your way any longer." 

There's a powerful lesson to remember there. When we try to bring God's will into a reality ourselves, we try to force it. We don't make it better. Look, parents, we're all terrible at this. We're all terrible about it, 'cause we know what our kids need. We know what they need to do. We know, we know, we know. 

And guess what we go to do many times? We go around trying to shoehorn them into the box that we think they have to fit in. You say, "Well, God made me their parent. I'm their authority." Yes, my friend, you are, but you're not God in their lives. You're not the Holy Spirit to them. We can't take this position that we're trying to shoehorn all God's plans into place, because then we deal with the repercussions that come. 

And we look at those repercussions, and we think that those consequences are something that, well, God just is sending me a season of suffering. No, we're just too stubborn. We try to run ahead of him. We try to make something where it doesn't need to be 

And every one of us understand what it means to go looking for a substitute 

But look what God does with his substitute. Verse four says, "And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him." What does that mean? It says God heard him when he offered the substitute and said, "Okay, let me set you on the right path. Let me clarify this for you This shall not be your heir. Okay, well that's pretty clear, right? 

Eliezer, your plan, your substitute, this will not be the heir that I promised. He's not it. Take that plan, wad it up, and throw it out. Because that is not going to work here. What is gonna work? But he that will come forth out of your own bowels will be your heir. In other words, you are going to have a literal ascen- descendant the natural way. 

That will be the heir of promise. Which is great. Now we have clarity. We have one plan been thrown away, which is good. God's given us clarity here. But now we're right back to the real issue at hand. Why did we create a scheme in the first place? Because we're inadequate. Because we have to wait on the Lord. 

Because we can't bring this into reality ourselves And God puts Abram right back into the box. Abram was working his way out through this plan, but God said, "No. I'm going to fulfill this even though it looks impossible to you." And it's only going to get more impossible because I think it's still, like, 10-plus years at this point before Isaac is born to folks in their 90s. 

And you say, "Oh, well, they must have had some special grace that they dealt with all the hardships of it 

God rejected the substitute. He gave him clear ground for trust. But there's a principle here that Abram's already acted on that was before this that is important to remember now. Remember in the preceding scene, it's where Abram goes and rescues, Lot and the king of Sodom and brings all their possessions back, right? 

Remember he did that? But remember when the king of Sodom looked at Abram and said, "Take anything you want. you know, it's all the spoil. Whatever you want, it's yours." And Abraham looks at that king and says, "I'm not taking a thing because I don't want it said that you made me something. All the glory for what I am doesn't belong to the king of Sodom. 

It belongs to the Lord." Okay, remember that. With that in mind, why do you think God has rejected Abraham's efforts to make him rich? To offer another plan through to succeed here. Why would God reject this? For the same reason that Abraham rejected the king of Sodom, because God does not need our interventions to bring about his reality. 

He doesn't need it. And so God's in a sense doing the exact same thing to Abraham that Abraham did to the king of Sodom God rejected it. But in rejecting it, he redirects Abraham's vision. Look at no- verse number five. He said, "He brought him forth." Who's he there? That's the Lord. Abraham goes on a w-- is gonna be taken on a walk by the Lord here. 

He brought him forth and said, "Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if you're able to number them." And he said, "So shall your seed be." 

God visits him one evening and says, "Abram, come with me. We're going on a walk." And as they walk out into the evening, there's no electricity, so there's plenty of darkness around to look up into the sky and to be able to see the whole panorama of heaven, and all the stars shining. And maybe the Lord, because He's the creator, turned the brightness up just a hair, so there'd be no doubt at how many there are up there. 

And He said, "Abram, let me show you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you as many descendants, and more, as you can look up into the sky and count those stars. Just go ahead, start. Go ahead, Abram. I'll, I'll stand here and wait for a second. Go ahead." Imagine he counted for an hour, and the Lord's just think- saying to him, "You get the point? 

You get the point? I'm going to make this out of you, but I don't need your substitute plan to make it a reality. I want you to trust me Because that's what it all comes back to. That is God saying, "Abraham, trust my providence." Remember, it's not that he doesn't know the destination. He wants to know how God's gonna go about it. 

God does not respond by telling him how he's going to do it. He just calls on Abram to look to him And God will take care of the rest of it. So what is the response? God redirected Abraham's vision away from his weakness and to the Lord's strength. Abraham, remember, I'm the one that put all those stars up there. 

Remember, I'm the one who created the whole world. As we put the biblical picture together, remember, he's the one that gave water out of a rock to feed a nation, or to f- to give, nourishment to a nation. Remember, he's the one that will provide manna every day for 40 years to the nation. Remember the story of the widow of Zarephath who just had a little bit of meal left in the barrel, and she was gonna make the, some little cakes, and her and her child were gonna eat that and die, and then here comes the prophet, and the prophet says, "Make some for me, too, and God's gonna take care of you," and there just continued to be enough in the barrel, and every time they went, there was just enough there? 

Yeah, God's the one that made that happen. Remember when there were 5,000 plus in the Gospels that needed to be fed, but there were only five loaves and two small fishes? And you look at that and say, "There's just no way. It's too little. The resources are not enough." But God says, "Look to me, because I don't need any resources. 

I created it all of nothing." And if I wanted to, he could, He'd snap his fingers right now and make it a reality. He's trustworthy. And we look at the record of these things. We see his exploits in the scriptures, and it calls us to d- a decision. Will we put our hands in this process and in every process of our lives, will we put ourselves in the hand of Almighty God and let Him accomplish His purpose? 

He is the one that said, "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." That's Him. He is able. So what is that demand of Abraham? He has brought God a substitute. God has clearly given him a word of authority to say that that is not the path And then counters with a promise to Abraham that as you look to the stars, so will your seed be. 

Now Abraham is brought to a position where he has to do something with what God has put in front of him. Look at verse number six. "And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness." Genesis 15:6 is the John 3:16 of the Old Testament Genesis 15:6 is the John 3:16 of the Old Testament. 

Because it says that here is how a man, a woman, a boy, a girl can be counted as righteous with God. That they see and encounter His Word, and they don't just put themselves on that word, they put themselves on the Lord. What's the object in Genesis 15:6? What is the object of Abraham's faith? The Lord. He trusted in the Lord. 

He trusted in the Lord. He was faced with his way versus God's way. Could Abraham have still decided, "No, I'm gonna take my servant Eliezer, and I'm gonna make him my heir"? Could he have gone that path? Yes, he could, and in the future, he's gonna try that path with Ishmael. But God was going to always reject it. 

He could have continued down the path with his plan. But instead, God presents him with another alternative, another way forward, which is simply, "Trust in me to make it a reality." And at that moment, Abraham, confronted with two choices, decides, "Okay, Lord, it's yours It's your path. I trust you to make it a reality 

The word for trust there in the Hebrew, it means to lean your whole weight upon. So in other words, this, the burden of this and the childlessness that is in his life and how he can't get away from it, he brings all of that burden and all of himself, and he decides to put himself fully in the Lord's hand on it. 

And in doing so, he is saying, "I am inadequate, but you never are, Lord, and you're trustworthy, and I'm gonna put myself on you. I'm gonna lean myself on your word, your promises, your name." And it said God counted that faith as righteousness. So then, we understand from this, faith is not a blind commitment. 

It's not just, "Well, trust that things are gonna work out." No, it is a response to the Lord himself, knowing what the Lord wants, knowing his path, knowing that there are alternatives, but choosing to rest in the Lord to bring it about. Faith is not some hope so thing that we're just gonna wish that it all works out well. 

It is a confident response to God himself 

So Abram leaned his whole weight upon the person and ability of God to bring the promise into reality. My friend, this is the same way God credits righteousness to the sinner. Upon hearing of the glorious name and person and work of Jesus Christ, that he lived, that he died, he was buried, and he rose again the third day, to die and pay the atoning price for the sins of the world. 

Upon hearing that God will forgive our sins through placing our whole weight for salvation on Christ- 

God credits righteousness You say, "Well, I have my ideas of how I can, I can make myself right in God's sight. I can try this, I can try that, I can try this." Bring your substitutes all you want, but there's only one thing that God will count a worthy price to decree one is righteousness. It's faith. Our works can never climb to it. 

This is Paul's whole argument to the Galatians and to the Romans, that Abraham was not justified by works. He was justified by trusting in the Lord, and God made it a reality So there's only one thing that God will look at our lives and determine that makes us righteous. It's faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ And there we find God, in verse number six, counting it to him for righteousness 

It was faith in God's name and His provision that added up to enough credit for the sinner to be made righteous So with all that said, I come back to the question I started with. What happens when God's promise requires a provision completely absent from your life? In salvation, God's promise says, "Walk before me and be perfect." 

That provision is absent from our lives because we're all gone our own ways. The best we can do is a filthy rag. So God offers us faith in His Son for the forgiveness of our sins. We respond in faith to believe on Christ as our Savior and receive eternal life Every day after that decision as a believer, it is the battle of walking in dependence on the Lord for all the tasks. 

Because we are utterly inadequate for any of them. Apart from his strength, we cannot experience the victory. It's not gonna happen. But God gloriously brings about what he has promised. Does Abraham not have a son one day? 

Does a great nation not descend from that son? 

Does that nation and that people become the path through which God sent His Son into the world? Has His Son not been a blessing to all the world Has his, has his son not been a blessing to you? So let me ask you, is God trustworthy even if he doesn't tell you how he's gonna do it? That's, that's the question. 

That's where we have to wrestle with him. If God is trustworthy, even if you cannot see the how, then my friend, put yourself on your knees before him. Leave it at his feet 

and walk in dependence And eventually, though none of us know when, we're gonna come to the moment where figuratively, okay, just give me a little room here, figuratively Abraham's gonna walk into the tent one day and Sarah's gonna look at him, and she's gonna say, "I'm expecting." 

And Abraham's gonna look around and he's gonna say, "No way. I can't believe what God did. This is absolutely impossible and there's no way, there's no rational explanation for how all this could happen As we walk with Him, those moments are coming, and our trust of Him will grow stronger and stronger But it's the journey that teaches us that our God is able. 

Father, as we've looked at this question and how you answered it and worked, what you worked to accomplish in Abraham, we have the blessing to look at that and to see it for the fulfillment and what you're continuing to do In our own lives, we all have things where we are in this battle of trusting you and not leaning to our own understanding, our own ways, our own ideas We're trying to make it happen, but we're not letting you make it happen In all of these things, Father, turn our eyes to see that it's not us and it's not our plans.

It's yours