Abrahamic Covenant, Part 2

Image by Gerd Altmann

Can you imagine a world in which the Jews didn't exist? It's impossible for us to do so as Western people. The default religion from a human population standpoint is polytheism or some faceless, person-less Law that governs the universe for no apparent reason. For us to walk around as even secular Americans assuming "a" God who runs the world is due to God making His promise to Abraham. We as Gentiles would have no idea at all that such a concept even exists. We couldn't form a category for this without God revealing Himself to Abram through words and demonstrations of His character. Even more than that, can you imagine a world without the Ten Commandments? It forms the basis of nearly all of our laws, including the principle of the punishment fitting the crime! 

But God has done far more than give us some new way of thinking or governing; God has also saved us from our old way of living. Both have been achieved through this promise to Abram. True, without God's promise to Abram there is no concept of monotheism or modern law, but more importantly without this promise to Abram there is no Jesus. There is no assurance that God could fulfill any of His promises without a demonstration of God's faithfulness to Abram. 

He promises that He will make Abram a great nation and that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. And as we can see today, we have been. Today, we are going to finish off point 2, God gives His people a Savior. 

God provides His people a Savior 

We saw last week that God gave His people a land, a place, and we saw that ultimately this is heaven. But the question remains as to how exactly that is going to happen. How on earth is God going to move from one old and barren couple to a nation great enough that all the nations of the world would be blessed? On paper, this doesn't look possible! Looking at the facts on the ground, God bringing life to an empty womb AND that life resulting in worldwide blessing seems unlikely at best. 

So how does God do this? The first step, of course is Sarah being pregnant. We will discuss that more when we get there, but suffice it to say that promise looked so impossible that it borders on irresponsibility to believe it and act on it. 

We are used to scams, aren't we? I remember getting a message once where a man was so glad to finally get in contact with me. A relative of mine had passed away leaving me tens of millions of dollars, and in order to get this money, all I would need to do was email back some personal information. Now, I knew this wasn't true based on two things. One, based on the country of origin of this message, I had absolutely no family there. Second, at the time, the entire living Jessup family could have fit in two booths at Denny's (we're a small family, is what I'm saying, and we love breakfast). And I knew where everyone was and knew that they were quite alive. I could discount that promise. What would have been even less believable, however, would be to say that my grandfather (whom for the remaining fifty years of his life after his wife died remained unmarried) would have a son who would provide me with millions of dollars! 

But this is exactly what happens to Abram! God looks at Him squarely in the face and tells him that the impossible is definitely going to happen. Now, as the chapters in Genesis go on, we will see that this takes a while from an individual human standpoint, and there are going to be some false steps and foibles before we get there. It is far from a direct and speedy path from childless Abram to mighty Solomon (to say nothing of the distance between Abram and Jesus!), but a quick glance at history shows that this has always been the case. It has always been the case that God makes a people where there used to be no people. 

Let's take a look at the nation of Israel from a political standpoint. When they arrive in Egypt, they start out as a shepherd family of 70 people (Gen. 47:1 and Ex. 1:5). They had to *leave* the land that they were promised because there was no food there to reside in Egypt. At first, this works out well. They've got a direct line to the king of the country who gives them the best of the land. You can imagine that this might be where they get to flourish. After all, they've got a privileged position in a wealthy nation that is currently feeding the rest of the world. Sound familiar? They do begin to multiply in this context, as that is what Pharaoh fears, but when did they begin to multiply more? When they were persecuted and enslaved (Ex. 1:12). 

How did we get from slaves to the richest king in the world? It wasn't from their throwing off of Egypt. They didn't revolt and conquer Egypt. God did that. As promised (those who curse you I will curse). It wasn't their resolve out in the desert. Even after escaping, they wanted to go back (Numbers 14:1-4)! It wasn't their courage in battle (Numbers 13). It was God's mercy. Skipping ahead a few hundred years, it wasn't David proving himself out in the shepherd's field that made him king. It was God's protection of his life, not just from Goliath, but from Israel's own king several times, that brought him to the throne. Finally, it was God's blessing of Solomon with both wisdom and riches that brought both to him and the now firmly established political entity of Israel. 

There is a lot to draw from for our own lives in just this little survey. 

One is that God works through ordinary, unimpressive people. God uses barren people to have children and uses slaves to rule. He uses imperfect parents to raise children. He takes grandparents who feel their relevance has gone and gives them ministries. You are not "too anything" for God to use you. Now, there may be some specific areas you aren't able to work in (for instance, there are specific qualifications for a church officer), but that doesn't mean that you can't serve the Lord in great ways as He considers them. 

The second thing that we should draw from this is humility. It is terrifyingly easy to assume that because things are going well in your life that you are definitely the only reason why. Does God reward obedience? Of course, and we will see that more next week, but obedience to a command that God gave you doesn't then give you all the glory. That is what Luke 17:9-10 is getting at. At best, we are only doing what we should have been doing. Honestly, just doing the things that are ultimately best for *us* and the wider world.   

As we turn back to the history of Israel with all that in mind, we can answer the question of why God does all of this. Why did God make Israel a great nation? Yes, it is because He promised, but the answer isn't so that Israel could be a political tour de force (notice that David and Solomon's reign together add up to only eighty years of prosperity and political influence before things begin to slip downhill). It was to be a blessing to the nations. 

God wasn't building politicians to be world policy makers. He was building priests to be Kingdom promise proclaimers. How do I know this? It is because that is exactly what God said that He was doing with them in Exodus 19:6. Listen to what God tells Moses to preach to the Israelites: "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”" What does a priest do in the Old Testament? He connects you to God. He provided the means by which you could offer appropriate sacrifice to God to receive forgiveness and acceptance from God. 

What a gift that would be to the world! 

When I was in seminary, I had the chance to talk to international students a lot. There was one who impacted me the most as he described wanting to come to America so he could learn the truth about his own country. Information is very tightly controlled there, and he viewed America as a place where he could not only get information, but a chance a better life back home. Our country has been a beacon of hope for many other students like him. In my travels, I will see people look at me with wonder that I get to *live* in a place like America. Our country does hold much for the world, but access to money, information, and entertainment has nothing on Israel who had access to God. 

When Solomon built the temple, God's presence filled it. That's astonishing. You could point to a particular coordinate on the map and say, "You can meet with God there. Do you have sin you need to get rid of? Take to those Israel priests over there, and they can sacrifice to God to take care of that for you." Do you have any idea what kind of gift that was to the world? Do you have any idea what it must have been like to encounter the Living God of all Creation just down the street. 

Well, you should. Because that's your job now. 

Israel, as we know from the rest of the Old Testament, didn't always do their priestly job very well. Yet, even when Israel was exiled, Isaiah prophesies that they will have this job again. In Isaiah 61:1-7, God tells them that not only will return to their land, they will resume their role as priests once again, providing access to God. 

But how did God do that? Luke 4:16-21. Israel would one day produce Jesus. He would be the Temple who would be broken down, and in three days be raised up (John 2:19)! He would be the one where it could be accurately said that "Whoever who has seen me as seen the Father" (John 14:9). He would be the one who dwells with us (John 1:14). He is the blessing of the nations! Paul says so in Galatians 3:16. Christ was the whole point as it says in verses 7-9 of that same chapter. He is the one who is proclaiming forgiveness of sins! He is the one who welcomes us into the promises! Now, WE have a land, a seed, and a blessing for the nations! 

But how? Because, as you may notice, Jesus isn't physically here anymore. How is that blessing communicated to the nations now? 

The answer is "you." How do I know this? That is what 1 Peter 2:4-9 says. This language might be familiar to you by now. We are now the priests. We are now the temple! When people want to encounter God, they should look for you. This isn't because you have become divine (you, just like Abram, are ordinary), but because God lives in you now. You can provide people the gospel, the knowledge that a sacrifice has already been made on their behalf. When they see you, they should see someone who has been transformed by God. 

They should see someone who looks like the promises made to Abram were real. They should see someone who has a blessing for them, news of a savior for them. 

Application: 

You are part of this great Nation, this Kingdom. As a citizen-priest, there are responsibilities that you have. We are now the Holy Nation, and every nation is the sum of its parts. We talk about nations being built on the back of the nuclear family, and there is no escaping that responsibility in the heavenly Kingdom. Personal holiness makes a real difference. Ordinary faithfulness moves mountains. 

In the same way, unfaithfulness creates mountains. Nothing does damage quite like heavenly citizens acting like the sons of disobedience. No one will turn against the banking industry because one teller was a criminal, but boy will they do that because of a Christian. In the same way, no one joins the banking industry because one teller went slightly out of their way to help them, but boy does that happen in the church. People will join a church because of a can of soup given in love. Ordinary faithfulness. 

Finally, we are going to have to be comfortable with likely not seeing the effect of our priesthood. One scholar put what Abram was doing in this way: "Abram must exchange the known for the unknown (Heb. 11:8), and find his reward in what he could not live to see (a great nation), in what was intangible (thy name) and in what he would impart (blessing)" (Kinder). At the end of the story where Abram is promised a nation, a seed, and a blessing, he has been protected (blessing), has one son from Sarah (seed), and just enough land to bury his wife (land). From Abram's perspective, that would probably be disappointing. But what would arise in the future! Abram wouldn't even have a category for his spiritual children through Jesus to be talking about his story in Sylacauga.  

What might He do through you? You probably won't find out until heaven, but you'll never find out if you don't follow after Jesus. Answer the call that He is putting on your life.