‘God cuts a covenant for you’ (Genesis 15:7-21)

 

A number of years ago, when my dad was still living, he had to spend a week in hospital.  It was during Covid, so he was not allowed visitors.  I was at the house when he got out.  He was now in a wheelchair and had a catheter, but that didn’t seem to bother him.  He wheeled into the living-room and exclaimed, ‘it’s great to be home!’  In fact, he repeated his pleasure numerous times that day.  There is something within all of us that wants a sense of home.  We need a place where we belong.

In the creation account of Genesis, we see that God had a people (Adam and Eve), who were in a place (Eden), and were enjoying his blessing.   But the they rebelled against God’s loving rule and we became homeless.  Yet God did not give up on humankind.  With unexplainable grace he called an idol-worshipper, Abram, and said ‘through you I am going to make a people, who have a place and who will enjoy my blessing’ (P. P. B.).    Our reading concerns the place part of the promise.  God is giving his people a home.

1.      God cuts covenants to help us believe (7-11)

Last week we read that Abram believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness’ (6).  Remember that it’s not the strength of Abram’s faith that put him right with God, but the object of his faith.  Weak faith in a strong God will save you.  In fact, even that weak faith is a gift from God.  As if to underline this Abram expresses his struggle to believe, again.  It’s a case of, ‘I believe, help me in my unbelief!’  God had brought him from Mesopotamia to give him the land of Canaan, but ‘O LORD God, how am I know that I shall possess it? (8).

So, God makes (or literally ‘cuts’) a covenant with him.  One Bible commentator explains, ‘Covenant is what God does when he gets formal about a promise’ (Dale Ralph Davis).  It’s not like God cannot be trusted to keep his word.  But this covenant illustrates how serious God is about keeping it!  He’s helping Abram believe.  God helps us believe every time we remember with bread and wine the covenant that was cut for us at the cross.

He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old. A ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon” (9).  The livestock were cut in half, but not the birds.  The idea is that the parties to the covenant would walk between the torn animals implying, ‘may I become like these dead animals if I break my word.’  On the cross Jesus cut a covenant, where he, the faithful party, died for our unfaithfulness.

2.      The giving of the land was an act of justice and grace (12-16)

Then the LORD said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your offspring will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years (13).  Being God’s people is not a guarantee of an easy life.  They are not going to inherit the land until after Abram’s time, but he was desiring a better country, a heavenly one (Heb. 11:16).  As God would later tell Abram’s grandson, Jacob, ‘I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go’ (Gen. 28:15).  The greatest blessing of God’s promise has always been, and will always be, his loving presence.  Home is more than a place, home is where God is.  

But why not give them the land straight away? In part because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete (18).  The removal of the people from that land is not ethnic-cleansing.  God later explained to Moses, ‘It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ (Deut. 9:5).  Judgement for God’s enemies, grace for his people.  Will you accept his grace, letting Jesus pay for your sin, or, will you face his judgement?

God had given the Amorites plenty of time.  When the early Christians complained that Jesus had not returned to bring an end to this wicked world, the apostle Peter wrote, ‘The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9).  If Jesus had decided that the iniquity of this world had been complete a hundred years ago, none of us would have been born to experience been born again (adapted from Donald Barnhouse).  

3.      This covenant was one-sided covenant (17-21)

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram …. (17-18) What is Abram’s part in cutting this covenant?  Abram’s part is to sleep and to observe.  Normally both parties would pass between the dead animals but God’s presence goes alone.  God is not saying, ‘if you and I work together we will get this job done.’  God is saying, ‘this covenant depends on my faithfulness not yours.’  That is how God brings his people home.

The apostle wrote, ‘He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 1:8).  It’s grace from first to last!  Yes, we must persevere to the end to be saved, but that perseverance is evidence that the Holy Spirit at work in us.  Indeed, our confidence grows when we see that though we fall God restores us, when we stray he brings us home again and though we forget him he brings himself into our thoughts.  We start to see that he is not going to give up on us!

Conclusion

In the Old Testament the promised land was sometimes called the place of rest.  When Jesus came he cried out saying, ‘come onto me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.’  The land of Canaan pointed to a better home, that home is to be with Jesus.  But it gets even better than that.  Jesus promised the disciples, ‘I will come back and take you to be where I am.’  He is not fully content in his heavenly home until he has all his people with him.  Heaven is not our goal, being with Jesus is our goal, and heaven is where Jesus is (John Lennox).

But do you have your home in Jesus?  Jesus invites you, saying, ‘behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me’ (Revelation 3:20).  ‘Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home in him’ (John 14:33).  He wants to transform your life with his loving and mighty presence.

Some of you come from broken homes.  Some of you are a long way from home.  All of our homes are imperfect, because we live with imperfect people like ourselves.  Sometimes our families don’t understand us or even listen to us.  But, Jesus makes his home in our lives.  So, remind yourself ever hour of every day, that he says to you, ‘I am with you and in you, I will never leave you nor forsake you, and one day I will come back and take you to be where I am.’