Genesis – First, God.
On the dark days, when we walk through valleys and wonder how present challenges are going to worked out, we have a tendency to see only what is now. We can see only the challenge for it looms over us and takes up all our thoughts. We cease to envision the solution. Sometimes we see what the solution might be but can not imagine how to get there.
We cannot deny that we have all been there on our own journeys with God. That’s why this opening line in our passage today to a wondering walker with God is reassuring for our own walk with God.
“Don’t be afraid…I’m your shield.” –God
Then Abram reminds God that he is childless yet the vision is for his descendants to outnumber the stars in the sky! How can this be?
God’s reply? “Don’t worry.”
Abram BELIEVED God. Immediately God declared Abram a man “set-right-with-God”.
HOLY PAUSEWow, God declared it all because Abram believe what God said. We are set right with God when we believe what He says to us. God’s Word is just that, GOD’S WORD. It is up to us to believe Him…or not.
Do we really believe the Truth? Truth is. Whether we choose to believe Him or not, Truth is God. Truth came from God in the Person of Jesus Christ who proclaimed Truth.
Do you believe? Are we declared by God, “set-right-with-God”?
Genesis 15, The Message
After all these things, this word of God came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I’m your shield. Your reward will be grand!”
2-3 Abram said, “God, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I’m childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?” Abram continued, “See, you’ve given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all.”4 Then God’s Message came: “Don’t worry, he won’t be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir.”
5 Then he took him outside and said, “Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!”
6 And he believed! Believed God! God declared him “Set-Right-with-God.”7 God continued, “I’m the same God who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees and gave you this land to own.”
8 Abram said, “Master God, how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?”
9 God said, “Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.”
10-12 He brought all these animals to him, split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. But he didn’t split the birds. Vultures swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them off. As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.
13-16 God said to Abram, “Know this: your descendants will live as outsiders in a land not theirs; they’ll be enslaved and beaten down for 400 years. Then I’ll punish their slave masters; your offspring will march out of there loaded with plunder. But not you; you’ll have a long and full life and die a good and peaceful death. Not until the fourth generation will your descendants return here; sin is still a thriving business among the Amorites.”
17-21 When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
At times even the most dedicated Christian feels “in the dark” and wonders why God seems so far away. Abraham had an experience of what spiritual directors call “the dark night of the soul.” The term comes from a sixteenth-century spiritual classic of that title by St. John of the Cross. Based on the night scenes described in the Song of Songs, the book tells how the child of God enters into deeper love and faith by experiencing temporary darkness and seeming separation from God. It is not an easy thing to experience, but sometimes necessary.
People with faith are also people with feelings, and feelings must not be discredited or ignored. We are made in the image of God, and this includes our emotions. While it is unwise to trust our emotions and bypass our minds, or let our emotions get out of control, it is also unwise to deny and suppress our emotions and become a religious robot.
We certainly ought to “listen to our feelings” and be honest about them. “When a person assumes responsibility for his feelings,” writes psychiatrist David Viscott, “he assumes responsibility for his world.” But don’t stop there: Take time to listen to God and receive His words of encouragement. This is the first time in the Bible you find the phrase the word of the Lord came; it is used more than one hundred times in the Old Testament. The faith that conquers fear is faith in the Word, not faith in feelings.
Our feelings change. God’s Word does not.
Abraham’s concern was not just for himself and his wife, though like all Eastern couples, they wanted children. His concern was for the working out of God’s plan of salvation for the whole world. God had a glorious plan, and God made a gracious promise, but God seemed to be doing nothing! Abraham and Sarah were getting older, and time was running out.One of the basic lessons in the “school of faith” is: God’s will must be fulfilled in God’s way and in God’s time. God did not expect Abraham and Sarah to figure out how to have an heir; all He asked was that they be available so He could accomplish His purposes in and through them. What Abraham and Sarah did not realize was that God was waiting for them to be “as good as dead” so that God alone would receive the glory.
It is good to share your concerns with the Lord, even if what you say seems to evidence unbelief or impatience in your heart. God is not deaf to your questions or unconcerned about your feelings. He did not rebuke Abraham; instead, He gave him the assurances that he needed. “Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).God dramatically assured Abraham that this one heir would be the father of so many descendants that nobody would be able to count them. Even when life is dark, you can still see the stars. Someone has well said, “When the outlook is bleak, try the uplook.” Abraham had been looking around, trying to solve his problem, but the answer lay in looking up.
Whether Abraham looked down at the dust (Gen. 13:14) or up at the stars (15:5), he would recall God’s promise and have confidence. This promise was repeated to Abraham (22:17) and reaffirmed to Isaac (26:4).
Promises do us no good unless we believe them and act on them. Abraham had already trusted God’s promise (12:1-3) and proved it by leaving home and going to Canaan (Heb. 11:8). But Genesis 15:6 is the first reference in the Bible to Abraham’s faith. It is the John 3:16 of the Old Testament, and for this reason, the New Testament writers use it to illustrate salvation by faith.
TRUTH: Jesus came to seek and to save lost people without God who have broken relationships with God. Jesus came to testify to the Truth (God) that whoever BELIEVES in Him will be saved! Truth is God, the ultimate source is God. Jesus uses the word faith in the Truth claims about God. Our faith in God overcomes our feelings.
So, do we really believe?
Do you really believe that what you believe is really real? (Take all the time you need, I am.)
Dear Heavenly Father,You are God and i am not. I believe. I believe Jesus’ testimony about You when Truth was put on trial before going to the cross to die for my sins. I believe in You, so I am assured that you are with me, guiding me, protecting me and providing for all that I will need on this journey here. Thank you for helping me to look up and see your light among the stars on my dark days when I am tested. Thank you for setting me right with You. I want what you want. Show me your will for me today.
In Jesus Name, Amen
I am going to be honest and venerable. This week I went to battle with the evil one. It began with small irritations of people telling me I can’t do this or that because of my age and stature among others digs of who I am. It escalated when I began to believe it, too. The battle got serious when I began to agree with the lies that I am no longer useful to God and his church. So, I prayed, cried, lamented as the prophets of old, and prayed some more. I asked Randy to pray with me and he did, I could feel it.
I have learned to not act on those feelings while in the middle of the battle. So I did not. I thought about resigning the work God gave me to do but I did not. I thought about what I could do instead of doing the hard work of relating to those who think less of you. But I did not act on those thoughts. The battle was great, making me physically tired. I was reminded of Jacob’s wrestling with God. I was exhausted the next day but I was free! The battle was over. God overwhelmed with His Holy Spirit. Go back and do what I have asked you to do. So I did.
A vision was revealed of what could happen if we let God do what He wants to do in and through us and most certainly in the lives of others. The vision is beyond us…FAR beyond us and yet we asked, in unity, why not?
1-2 Then this: Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim went off to war to fight Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar.
17-20 After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and his allied kings, the king of Sodom came out to greet him in the Valley of Shaveh, the King’s Valley. Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine—he was priest of The High God—and blessed him:
Move forward, ONLY at His command. Learn your lessons well in the school of faith. Let God take you to places you have never been before because of your faith in Him. 
I had a dear friend and mentor mom who told me how she taught her two growing boys to divide and share. She would give one boy the choice to divide the cookie, brownie or candy bar. The other boy got first choice as to which half he got. Brilliant, right?
5-7 Lot, who was traveling with Abram, was also rich in sheep and cattle and tents. But the land couldn’t support both of them; they had too many possessions. They couldn’t both live there—quarrels broke out between Abram’s shepherds and Lot’s shepherds. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living on the land at the time.
14-17 After Lot separated from him, God said to Abram, “Open your eyes, look around. Look north, south, east, and west. Everything you see, the whole land spread out before you, I will give to you and your children forever. I’ll make your descendants like dust—counting your descendants will be as impossible as counting the dust of the Earth. So—on your feet, get moving! Walk through the country, its length and breadth; I’m giving it all to you.”
I wonder how many family fights have been caused by the love of money. The newspapers often publish reports about families battling in court because of an inheritance or a lottery winning. People who used to love each other and enjoy each other start attacking each other just to get money, but money cannot buy the blessings that families freely give.
Abraham determined to be a peacemaker and not a troublemaker. The problem between Abraham and Lot was not caused by the land, the famine, their wealth (both of them were rich), or even their herdsmen. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart. Lot’s heart was centered on wealth and worldly achievement, while Abraham wanted only to please the Lord. 
No wonder our Lord prayed that His people might be one, that the world might believe (John 17:20-23). Christian unity is fragrant and fruitful (Ps. 133), but disunity turns that fragrance into a stench and the garden into a desert. It’s hard for the world to get past the smell of disjointed parts demanding their own way.
Abraham lived for others, not for self. While in Egypt, Abraham thought first about himself (Gen. 12:12-13), but when he returned to his altar in Canaan, he put God first and others next.
How yielding are we at home with family, at work among coworkers, in God’s church among our brothers and sisters in Christ?
4-6 So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound.
8 He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent between Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there and prayed to God.
Why did God allow the famine? To teach Abraham and Sarah a basic lesson in the “school of faith,” a lesson you must also learn: Tests often follow triumphs. 
God alone is in control of circumstances. You are safer in a famine in His will than in a palace out of His will. It has well been said, “The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.” Abraham failed the test of circumstances and turned from the will of God.
God graciously watched over His servant and brought him out of a difficult situation. If Sarah had become one of Pharaoh’s wives, what would have happened to the promise of the Redeemer? 
Move when God says to move. Be still when He says to be still. Worship with gratitude, pray for repentance. We pray, God works.
4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”
“Man does what he can, God does what He will.” Solomon used more words but said it best: “There are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless the Lord’s counsel–that will stand” (Prov. 19:21 nkjv).
God had commanded the peoples to be fruitful and multiply and to scatter across the earth, but they decided to move to Nimrod’s city of Babylon and settle there (11:1-12). This move was blatant rebellion against God’s command that the people scatter. Apparently Nimrod wanted them in his cities and under his control.
“Every generation builds its own towers,” writes psychotherapist Naomi H. Rosenblatt, and she is right. Whether these are actual skyscrapers (the Willis Tower [formerly Sears] and Tribune Tower in Chicago, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Trump Tower in New York City), or mega-corporations that circle the globe, the idea is the same: “We will make a name for ourselves.” God’s people can’t escape being in the world, because it’s in the world that we have our ministry, but we must avoid being of the world. We’re not here to build the arrogant towers of men; we’re here to help build the church of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is using the church as an agent of reconciliation to bring people together in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10; 2 Cor. 5:14-21). In one sense, Pentecost was a reversal of Babel, for the people present in Jerusalem at Pentecost heard the praises of God in their own languages (Acts 2:1-12). The day will come when people from every tribe and nation will worship Jesus Christ (Rev. 15:4) and the judgment of Babel will be done away (Zeph. 3:9).
As we read from “the beginning” when God created the first man and then woman, we need to keep in mind that we all descended from Adam. Noah descended from Adam. This remnant after flood of Adam’s original family will populate the earth. They scatter over the earth as God commanded they will do. As they from groups, these groups form their own languages. That is a natural occurrence. 
People will have different interests and talents. Some people groups will be nomads that wander the desserts. Some will sail the seas and maybe become fishermen to make a living for their families. Some family groups will farm the land. Nimrod was a great warrior and hunter so his family probably ate a lot of meat! 
13-14 Egypt was ancestor to the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim, the Pathrusim, the Casluhim (the origin of the Philistines), and the Kaphtorim.
I believe this growing population is a miracle of God in and of itself. From three sons, the earth was populated into people groups that formed nations!
What do you do when your computer locks up, refuses to go where you want it to go and is stuck on the page you don’t want to be? First, we heave a huge sigh and moan of frustration. UGH! Right?
What happens when the internet stops streaming into your home causing the lights on the monitor to go dark? Our stress level rises quickly for we feel our lives depend on this line of communication! We feel we are blocked off from all civilization! Over dramatic? First we try everything we know how to do to fix it in our own way.
1-4 God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! Every living creature—birds, animals, fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You’re responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else. Except for meat with its lifeblood still in it—don’t eat that.
8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”
12-16 God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”
20-23 Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from its wine, got drunk and passed out, naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were outside the tent. Shem and Japheth took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders, walked backward and covered their father’s nakedness, keeping their faces turned away so they did not see their father’s exposed body.
Though God spoke especially to Noah and his sons, this covenant includes all of Noah’s descendants. The covenant doesn’t stop there, however, for it also includes “all living creatures of every kind”. Humans, birds, beasts, and wild animals are encompassed in this wonderful covenant.
In becoming a farmer, Noah followed the vocation of his father Lamech (5:28-29). This is the first mention of wine in Scripture, but wine-making was practiced before the flood, and Noah certainly knew what too much wine would do to him. In an attempt to exonerate Noah, some students claim that the flood brought about a change in the earth’s atmosphere, and this caused the grape juice to ferment for the first time, but the defense is feeble (almost laughable). Noah had picked the grapes, crushed them in the winepress, put the juice into skins, and waited for the juice to ferment. Noah knew what he was doing.
The Bible doesn’t excuse the sins of the saints but mentions them as warnings to us not to do what they did (1 Cor. 10:6-13). As Spurgeon said, “God never allows His children to sin successfully.” There’s always a price to pay.
It’s been said that on the battlefield of life, Christians are prone to kick their wounded, and too often this is true. But before we condemn others, we’d better consider ourselves, for all of us are candidates for conduct unbecoming to a Christian.
Do you need to hit the “reset”? 
Now IMAGINE this…Rains come to the neighborhood. You can’t get out of the house because of all the water. You sit tight inside. You wonder if your house can withstand the storm. Your house is suddenly lifted up, with you and those who love you and God nestled inside. Great waters come from below and above. You no longer see the sky or land, but you see your lost neighbors struggling to find something to hang on to in the storm. There is nothing for them. You hurt for them but you cannot save them. You can no longer reach them.
1-3 Then God turned his attention to Noah and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down. The underground springs were shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and the rain quit. Inch by inch the water lowered. After 150 days the worst was over.
NOAH’S RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORK
Jesus saves us today. Get on board. We are not perfect but we are perfectly forgiven by Jesus who took all our sins upon Himself and eliminated those sins forever. Jesus is THE PROMISE from God for eternal life with Him.
We have heard the story of Noah throughout our childhood. Even those who don’t go to church know obout Noah and the rainbow. But do they know about God, the One who shut the door to all that was defiling to Him. Do they know God shut the door to protect a righteous, faithful man called Noah and his family from the ravages of evil. The world was full of evil as we read in the previous chapter. Imagine the worst evil that happens in our world and know that it happened then, too. And God was heartbroken.
2-4 “Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and a female; one pair of every unclean animal, a male and a female; and seven pairs of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to insure their survival on Earth. In just seven days I will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I’ll make a clean sweep of everything that I’ve made.”
13-16 That’s the day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by his wife and his sons’ wives, boarded the ship. And with them every kind of wild and domestic animal, right down to all the kinds of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds and anything that flies. They came to Noah and to the ship in pairs—everything and anything that had the breath of life in it, male and female of every creature came just as God had commanded Noah. Then God shut the door behind him.
17-23 The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth. The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered—the high-water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains. Everything died. Anything that moved—dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life—dead. And all people—dead. Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; he wiped out the whole works—people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.
WHAT DID GOD DO?
WHAT GOD STILL DOES FOR US…
When they grow into teenagers, they feel your direction and guidance is no longer needed, so they go their own, seeking their own path, and feeling confident that they can direct their destiny…at least for that day. How does it feel when they no longer look at you, talk to you or even acknowledge your presence in the room?
3 Then God said, “I’m not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they’re going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years.”
5-7 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I’m sorry I made them.”
9-10 This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, a man of integrity in his community. Noah walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
18-21 “But I’m going to establish a covenant with you: You’ll board the ship, and your sons, your wife and your sons’ wives will come on board with you. You are also to take two of each living creature, a male and a female, on board the ship, to preserve their lives with you: two of every species of bird, mammal, and reptile—two of everything so as to preserve their lives along with yours. Also get all the food you’ll need and store it up for you and them.”
Noah loved God. Noah did not break God’s heart. Noah did EVERYTHING God told him to do. Noah and his family were saved.
Everything hinges on God’s love.
