1. Delay is not Denial (1-5)
Your Shield & Reward
Now, I don’t know whether you have experienced the same thing in your walk with God, but sometimes I’ve found in my own life that after some great spiritual triumph, after the initial elation, there often comes a time of fear and depression and doubt. And the way God reassures Abram at the beginning of this chapter makes you wonder whether that isn’t perhaps what’s happening here. 

Just before this, in chapter 14, Abram acted in faith by refusing to accept the gifts of the wicked king of Sodom. In faith he trusted God to bless him, and didn’t become dependent on this worldly king. But now that faith seems to waver a little.

“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” Why do you think God encourage Abram with those words? You only say “Don’t be afraid” when someone is fearful. And why would God remind Abram that He is his protection and his reward, unless Abram was being tempted to fear for his life and to regret what he had given up? Think of what he had just done.

First of all, out of love for his nephew Lot, he set out to rescue him from the alliance of the four kings. But in defeating those armies, he took a tiger by the tail. Next time they crossed the Euphrates, they might come with redoubled strength, and attack Abram to avenge the loss he had inflicted on them. These fears must have played on Abram’s mind.

Also, after the battle, Abram had given up his share of the booty, so the king of Sodom could never boast that he had made Abram rich. Abram trusted God to do that, and not any man – certainly not a man like the king of Sodom. But maybe, just maybe, he was now having second thoughts. Was that perhaps a little rash and hasty? 

We can have the same kind of regrets. You may pray about a particular course of action and take a step in faith only to doubt later whether it was all really worthwhile. We make decisions when we are on the crest of a spiritual wave, when our zeal for the Lord is strong, knowing it is the right decision…only to have doubts and fears later, when the rubber hits the road and reality bites.

Now the word translated here as “reward,” (I am your great reward) means a just compensation for something. God is saying that he will compensate Abram for the reward he gave up to the king of Sodom. But the compensation is nothing less than The Lord himself! “I am your VERY great reward!” That phrase in Hebrew conjures up images of red hot pokers and burning zeal. I am your exceedingly great reward, I am better than the hottest, most burning desire of your heart, is what God is saying to Abraham. There is nothing better, nothing to compare with the relationship the Lord has with his people. Do you feel that way about God? Is He your great reward in life?

The Lord gives the same promises to us. Jesus assured his first followers that no matter what they gave up for the sake of the gospel, knowing God in Jesus Christ was more than compensation. In Mark 10:29 we hear this: “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.”

Nothing you give up for the sake of the gospel, no comfort you forgo, no enemies you make because you are faithful to the Lord, no worldly gain you lose, should make you fear or regret. Because the Lord is your shield and your very great reward.

“That’s All Very Well God, but…”
Well, Abram is very like us, isn’t he? Look at his response in verse 2: But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

Abram reveals what is dearest to his heart. Where his real fears and dreams lie. What matters most is that he have an heir to inherit his name, a descendant to give the great wealth the Lord has given him. And that is a very common and natural human desire. Aren’t we often tempted to think the same way? Yes, I know you’ve given me all these wonderful spiritual promises, God, but why didn’t I get a life partner? Or why wasn’t I more talented or smarter? Why didn’t I achieve more? Or, why did I never have children? Or why did you take my spouse from me so soon? Or… any number of other regrets that really cut to the heart of who we are and who we want to be in this world. What is it that you really desire and that you think God has withheld from you or taken from you? And have you allowed that to make you bitter or resentful? Has it dulled your spiritual zeal and your love for God’s people? 

If you recognize yourself in Abram’s doubts and fears and bitterness, then take to heart God’s words to Abram and his promises to us. He really does long to be our protector and our compensator for anything and everything we may lose or fail to gain in this life. He wants to bless us with his love and his presence and his fatherly goodness, and to make us a blessing to others.

An Ancient Custom
But how often our faith and our unbelief live in us in an uneasy tension. On the one hand, Abram was trusting God to keep his promise to bless the world through his own offspring. But time was marching on, and it seemed as though other arrangements would have to be made. Perhaps Abram began to re-interpet God’s words. Just like those who can no longer believe in miracles, or that Jesus rose from the dead, or that he is returning again in glory. And they say, “well maybe God really meant this instead.” Maybe the resurrection was just the faith of the disciples, by which Jesus continued to live in their hearts. Maybe Jesus’ promise to return really means that he just lives in his church, and there is no earthly second coming of the Messiah. And they spiritualize away all the other promises of scripture like that. Abram was doing a similar thing here, by falling back on an ancient custom of adopting a servant as his heir. This was Abram’s contingency plan. Just in case God didn’t come up with the goods. And as the years went by, it looked more and more as though he was right.
The Promise Clarified
The Lord’s responds to Abram’s complaints with great patience and forebearance and love. He reassures Abram and confirms the reality of the promises. Yes, Abram, I really did literally mean that you would have a real son of your own, not a surrogate heir. Verse four says:
“Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.””
2. The Heart of the Gospel (6)
Abram Believed & Was Justified
What was Abram’s response to God’s Promise confirmed? Verse six is one of the most significant in the whole bible, for within it we see the heart of how God saves his people. The heart of the gospel of grace. It says with simple eloquence: “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness”

The word for believed in Hebrew, the word Aman, comes from the same root word as Amen. Abram gave his amen to what God had said. He knew for sure it was right and trustworthy and true.

Faith in Jesus Our Justification
The New Testament says a lot about the faith of Abraham and how through Jesus we exercise the very same faith with the very same result. Paul says in Romans 4:
“Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law [that’s the Jews] but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all [that is, of all Jewish and non-Jewish Christians].”

And Paul goes on to say in Romans 4:23, “The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

There has never been any other way to get right with God than by his grace, that is, his undeserved mercy. We receive it simply by putting our trust in his promise like Abraham. Through Jesus, God has included us in the solemn oath and covenant he made with Abraham. We have become Abraham’s sons and daughters by faith. The New Testament makes a big thing about the fact that Abraham received the promise of salvtion by faith alone, long before he was circumcised, and hundreds of years before the law of Moses was given. It is not by religious rituals like circumcision or baptism that we are saved. Don’t trust in the fact that you were baptized a Presbyterian. That is just the outward sign of the covenant. Don’t trust in your keeping of God’s laws. Abraham was not saved by keeping the ten commandments or any of the other of God’s Law – they came hundreds of years later. In the end we are just like Abraham. All we have in the end is the bare Word of God, his promise to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by faith in God’s promises alone, and we await the fulfillment of those promises in the return of the Lord Jesus.
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