"The Power of a Promise"

Genesis 15:1-6

     Dear Friends in Christ,   

I believe we would all agree that promises are quite powerful.  Many times they are treated as something very important, almost sacred.  In our lives, we cling to promises for hope, for assurance.  So many times we cling to the promises in our lives as if we were clinging to a lifeline, as it often seems like we are caught in the “current” of life that carries us along at a whim, often with no set direction.  We rejoice that in a world which is ever changing, sometimes seemingly spinning out of control, with nothing constant to be found, we have such a thing as promises to hold onto, to cling to…something that is constant, something that is sure and stable.  But while we cling to those promises, sometimes they can be so hard to believe.  Think of our relationships with one another.  A child is born into a family just knowing that it will be loved by his/her parents.  But when parents, mom or dad, decide for whatever reason that parenting just isn’t their thing and they walk out on the promise that they made to that child, that child is left wondering if promises can be trusted at all.  I stand in this chancel area and think about how many hundreds of couples have stood hand in hand before God and this altar and promised to one another that they would always love one another and forsake all others until death would part them.  But yet many who have done so have felt the sting of broken promises and have been left standing alone, saying to themselves, “This is not what I was promised.”  And as a result, when promises of love come their way again, there often is that question of doubt in their mind.  Promises are a powerful thing, but at times, it can be so hard to trust in promises when the circumstances that we find ourselves in seem to indicate the exact opposite of what is being promised.

Abram, later to be known as Abraham knows something about this.  To see this we need to step outside of our Old Testament lesson for today, Genesis 15 and back up a bit.  We meet Abram for the first time in Genesis 12.  I imagine that when I ask most of you to tell me what you know about this figure of the Bible, I’m sure that many of you would reply with comments about how he is one of the heroes of the Bible, a very faithful man, and indeed that is correct, that is how the writer to the Hebrews in our Epistle lesson describes him today.  But you see that wasn’t always so with Abraham.  Back when he was still known as Abram, living in the land of Ur and later Haran, he was an idolater, his whole family was.  But Yahweh God, Abram’s Heavenly Father, had other plans for him.  Abram deserved nothing but God’s punishment, but yet in His loving mercy, God called him out of a life of idolatry into a life of faith and thus a state of righteousness, a state of grace.  The Word of God comes to Abram and tells him to go to the land of Canaan and promises him that He will make Abram “a great nation.”  He promises to “bless him and make his name great.”  Yahweh promises him that through Abram “all families of the earth shall be blessed.”  (Genesis 12:2-3).  And so Abram heeds the Word of the Lord, He believes the promises of God, and he goes.  He comes to the land of Canaan and again the Word of God comes to him and promises him, “to your offspring I will give this land.”  (Gen. 12:7).  Absolutely, Abram believed that promises are a powerful thing, especially when we’re dealing with the promises of God.  So much so, that after all these promises come to him from God, Abram responds…he responds in faith, he stops right where he is and builds an altar to God.  Promises are powerful and we cling to them with such tenacity don’t we?  We put all our hope in them, but it can be so hard to trust in promises when the circumstances that we find ourselves in seem to indicate the exact opposite of what is being promised.

Take Abram here.  When we meet him in Genesis 12, he is 75 years old, his wife Sarai is 65.  They have no children together, despite their years together.  And now here comes the Word of God Himself, promising not only a child, but promising that through this Child all families of the earth would be blessed.  And as impossible as it surely must have seemed to Abram and Sarai (we see this in Sarah’s laughing later on), they put their faith in the promises of God.  But yet when a famine fills the land and they have to head for Egypt, faithful Abram becomes doubting Abram.  He figures that the Egyptians will see how beautiful Sarai is, kill him, and take her for themselves.  And so Abram, while wanting to believe in the promises of God, is surrounded by circumstances in his life which seem to indicate to him that maybe the promises of God aren’t so powerful.  As he looks around there in Egypt, he wants to believe in the promises, but it is so hard to believe.  Abram begins to think, “Well, if I am going to have a son, then I need to do something here.  I need to take things into my hands.”  And so Abram, by not having faith in the promises of God, disobeys God, breaks His commands, and endangers the promise, he has Sarai lie and say that she is his sister.  But despite Abram’s sin, God enriches Abram, in fact he prospers in Egypt until the time that he returned home.  And when he gets back, the promises of God come to Abram again.  God says to him, “Look around Abram, in every direction, all this I will give to you, I promise you that I will give it not only to you, but to your offspring.  And about your offspring…they will be as numerous as the dust of the earth.”  Wow!  The promises of God are a powerful thing. 

And in our OT lesson for today, we find Abram again.  By now he is getting near 100 years old, Sarai in her upper 80s and still no child.  The only heir to speak of is some boy who is a servant in his household.  And so Abram is afraid, he fears, and he silently wonders, “Can God’s promises be broken?  I want to trust in them, I want to believe but it is so hard.  Look, I’m a 100 years old, my wife has been barren for her whole life…can I really trust this Word of Promise?”  Despite Abram’s fear, despite his doubt in the promises, God’s love is so great that His promises just keep on coming.  He takes Abram outside one night, points Him up to the stars that He created, and says, “Go ahead…count them.  So shall your offspring be.”  And Abram believed.  Despite the circumstances that surrounded him which seemed to indicate the exact opposite of what was being promised, Abram took faith in the promises of God.  On the promises of God he stood because as the writer to the Hebrews states so well, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  And this amazing faith that Abram had was not possible on his own strength.  On his own, he was a sinner who could not muster even the smallest amount of faith, but only disbelief and doubt.  But yet as our text tells us, “the Word of God came to him” again and again and again.  And each time the Word of God came to Him, each time the Words of Promise came to him, pointing him to the Child that was to come, the Holy Spirit worked through those powerful Words of Promise to create faith in that which was unseen, and through that faith took him from being one deserving of death and eternal damnation to one found righteous in the eyes of God.

My dear friends, who after a year here I absolutely see as my family, my brothers and sisters in Christ, the promises of God came not only to Abram, but they come to you as well.  Each and every word found within the Holy Scriptures is God’s Word of promise to you.  Above all, He shares with you the same promise of a Child through whom You are blessed.  God promises, through this Child, Jesus Christ, to always love you, to never leave you or forsake you.  God promises you to supply for your every need, as we see in our Gospel text this morning.  God promises you, through Jesus Christ, to forgive you all of your sins.  But my friends, how often do we open the pages of Scripture and read these words of promise and believe in them, take faith in them?  How often are we taking every chance we can to get into this God’s House and hear and take to heart the words of promise that Pastor Meyer proclaims to you?  Too often, we hear these promises on Sunday morning or in our morning devotions and we take them to heart and we believe in them—no doubt they sound so sweet and comforting to our hurting hearts, our hurting and sinful souls.  No doubt many of us leave saying that the promises of God are a powerful thing.  But then when we step foot out of here and have to live out there in the “real” world, it becomes a bit harder to believe and trust in the promises of God doesn’t it? We’re no longer in this cocoon of a sanctuary, but we’re in a world filled with hurt, sadness, hate, envy, and need—a world filled with sin.  So badly we want to cling to the promises of God, but like Abram, when we see the circumstances that often surround us, we doubt.  We look around and we say, “This doesn’t look or feel like what I was promised.  I look around and instead I see the exact opposite of what is being promised.”  And God’s response to your doubt?  The promises keep coming, just as He did with Abram, so also He does with you.  The Word of God continues to come to you and to promise to you His everlasting, unconditional, life-giving, forgiving love.  And as that Word of Promise, that Word of Jesus Christ fills your ears, your hearts and souls are transformed.  The Holy Spirit works through these Words of Promise to create faith in that which is unseen, and through that faith you are taken from one who is deserving of death and eternal damnation to one who is righteous in the eyes of God.  You see Abram looked forward to that which he could not see (the Cross) and in that he took faith.  You, brothers and sisters, through the power of the Holy Spirit, look back to that which you can not see, and in that take faith…that upon that cross died the One whose blood was shed in for your redemption, for your salvation.  Never forget my dear family, that the promises of God are a powerful and loving thing.

     Amen.