Forest Park Church Sermons Forest Park Church

As we continue to follow the life of Abram, you will notice the “ups and downs” of Abram’s faith. In our text today, Abram’s faith is at an incredible low, where both Abram and Sarai doubted the word of the Lord. Sarai complains, Abram complies, and Hagar ended up a casualty. Yet the Lord in His grace intervened and revealed Himself to Hagar giving her an instruction and a promise.

In our text today, the Lord revealed Himself to Abram in a vision, where the Lord identifies Himself in terms of His relationship with Abram. Reaffirms His promises to Abram and seals His promises with a covenant. Abram responds to these promises, by believing in the Lord to fulfill these promises. As a result, the Lord credited it to Him as righteousness.

In the separation of Lot and Abram we are going to see the foolishness of Lot looking around and seeing the lushness of the land on the other side, not knowing that evil was lurking nearby. In contrast we are going to see the faithfulness of Abram looking up, trusting the Lord, and waiting for the Lord to fulfill His promises to him.

At times Abram displays great faith as He is trusting the Lord to fulfill His promises, but then in our story today Abram displays a lack of trust in the Lord’s protection and provision. Yet, despite Abram’s lack of faith, the Lord remained faithful in keeping his promises. For the Lord’s faithfulness in keeping His promises to Abram did not depend on how Abram behaved, but on the fact that the Lord called Him and made those promises to Him.

In Genesis 3-11, all we have read is God’s curses upon humanity, but now starting in Genesis 12 we read about God’s blessing. We learn that the Lord is the source of this blessing, Abram is both the recipient of, and the conduit of this blessing and the nations are the beneficiaries of this blessing.