The Covenant Of Faith

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” –Genesis 12:1-3

            The belief in physical blessings for spiritual obedience has become somewhat of a cottage industry in America. So-called preachers like Joyce Myers and Joel Osteen set out to teach their faithful listeners the way to unlock the blessings of God through what they do or say. Some, like Osteen, hold to a psychological prosperity gospel – receiving blessings is all about having the right attitude about oneself. Others, like Myers, teach a similar gospel, but a different means of receiving blessings. To them, having enough faith is the key to a successful life.

            While these teachers are new, the teachings aren’t. People from all walks of life and from various religions have taught a sort of cause and effect to the blessings of life. The Hindus believe in Karma, the Buddhists hold to a sense of balance (of Yen and Yang). And, honestly, there is a real sense in which this belief permeates Scripture as well. We’ve already seen it in the “blessing/curse” dichotomy of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Adam was promised blessing for obedience and a curse for disobedience. Cain was promised blessing for faithfulness, and a curse for sinfulness. The post-flood generations were promised fruitfulness as a blessing and a sword as a curse. We just know this is the way the world works. And yet, we know that we can’t obtain that level of balance, we can’t build up enough good, we can’t be perfectly obedient or faithful or positive in this life. Bono, the lead singer for the band U2, reflected this contrast well in an interview he gave:

“You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...  It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe.  I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that ‘As you reap, so will you sow’ stuff.  Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff. That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge… It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.”

            We’ve been holding out for grace, also, as we’ve walked through the first eleven chapters. At the end of Chapter 11, we get another genealogy, and the microscope of the story zooms in on this one family in the land of Ur – the family of Terah. We get a little closer and we learn about a man named Abram and his wife, Sarai. All we are told about these two people is that Abram is old, and Sarai is barren. So, we know from the outset of this story, these are not our heroes.  There is no strapping young man like Cain to embody all of our hopes. There is no fruitful, righteous man like Noah and his sons to whom we can cling. All we have are a dead man and a dead womb.

            But, then the beautiful words of chapter 12, verse 1, start: “Now the Lord said…” Remember, every good thing, every plot change, every new development in this story has started with “God said”. God speaks to Abram by first giving him one simple command: “Get up and go to the land that I will give you.” But, what follows the command is the wonderful part: “And I will bless you, make your name great, make you a blessing, protect you, and use you to be a blessing to the world.” This promise of God is what we call a covenant. A covenant is like a contract between two parties, with two major differences. Often, a covenant is between a greater party (like a king), and a lesser party (like his subjects). And, a covenant can only be terminated in death. We’ve already seen some covenants in earlier chapters (Adam, Cain, Noah).

            Most covenants follow a “blessing/curse” model. These covenants usually lay out the terms for blessings and the terms for curses. If you do this, then you will receive blessings, but if you don’t do this you will receive curses. But, there is another kind of covenant: an unconditional covenant. In an unconditional covenant, the offering party chooses to keep his end of the bargain, regardless of the faithfulness of the other party. Now notice that God does give Abram a command to go, but there is no curse. It is not like the covenant with Adam, where if he ate of the fruit he would die. No, in this covenant, God is completely committed to keeping his end of the covenant. And we will see as the story progresses that Abraham will fail miserably at being faithful to God. Yet, God is still faithful to Abraham.

            Now, I want you to notice three elements to this covenantal promise that God makes. First, God promises that he will make Abram into a great nation. Remember, Abram is old and his wife is barren. This is impossible! Yet, God promises that he will give birth to a great nation. Remember from the story of the tower of Babel, one of the goals of the people was that they might not be scattered. They wanted to form a great nation through human efforts and God confused them and broke up their plans. Now, God purposes to make a great nation through the most impossible of means.

Second, God promises that he will make his name great. Remember also from Babel that the people wanted to “make a name for themselves”. They wanted to be highly exalted so they might be glorified among men. Now, God purposes to use this insignificant man to build a nation, and through that nation to make his name known in all the Earth.

Finally, God promises that he will make Abraham into a blessing. There are two ways that this happens. The first way is apparent throughout the rest of Genesis. Anyone who identifies with Abraham and his family is blessed, and anyone who rejects Abraham’s family is cursed. The best example of this is the story of Joseph, where Potiphar and even the nation of Egypt as a whole are blessed because of the wisdom of Joseph.

The second way of blessing is less obvious. Notice at the end of verse 3, it says that through Abraham all families of the world will be blessed. Now, when we read that, we could think that God just meant to bless the whole world through the nation of Israel, and in a number of ways that is true. But, there is a more perfect way that God has blessed the nations through Abraham.

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. – Gal. 3:7-9

God’s purpose in blessing Abraham was to one day bless all the world through the Gospel. Paul even goes on to say in Gal. 3:16 that Jesus was the true offspring of Abraham. You see, brothers and sisters, the whole point of the promise of Abraham was to bless the world through one man. Yet, that one man was not Abraham, it was Jesus. Through Jesus, people from every race and tongue would be joined together into one holy nation of priests, as Peter says in 2 Pet. 2:9. Jesus is the name that is above every other name. As Peter says in Acts 4:12, “there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.” And, Jesus is the offspring that has blessed the whole world. So, we see at the end of all time, in Rev. 7:9, people from every race, tribe, and tongue, praising God and the Lamb.

Friend, you may think that you can balance your life in such a way that the good will outweigh the bad and God will accept you. But, that story has been told a thousand times over, and the end is always the same. There is no way to build up enough good Karma, there is no way to do enough good deeds that it will overshadow your bad because your bad is still a deed that is done. Turn to Christ, who extends to you an unconditional, everlasting covenant. Receive his covenant by faith and be saved.

Brothers and sisters, the grace of God should make us faithful. He has been faithful to us, even when we were unfaithful. He was gracious to us, even when we were dead and barren. May we live faithfully before him knowing that he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. And, because we have been blessed in Christ, we can be a blessing to others. Jesus tells his disciples in Matt. 5:13-16 that they are “salt” and “light”. As followers of Jesus, we season the world like salt. We preserve this world by displaying a way that is different, a way that is compassionate and gracious and good. And we shine a light into the darkness by living in the light of the Gospel.