Written by: Nick Shepherd - Youth For Christ

Genesis 15 v 1-6
After these things happened, the LORD spoke his word to Abram in a vision: “Abram, don’t be afraid. I will defend you, and I will give you a great reward.”
But Abram said, “Lord GOD, what can you give me? I have no son, so my slave Eliezer from Damascus will get everything I own after I die.” Abram said, “Look, you have given me no son, so a slave born in my house will inherit everything I have.”
Then the LORD spoke his word to Abram: “He will not be the one to inherit what you have. You will have a son of your own who will inherit what you have.”
Then God led Abram outside and said, “Look at the sky. There are so many stars you cannot count them. Your descendants also will be too many to count.”
Abram believed the LORD. And the LORD accepted Abram’s faith, and that faith made him right with God.

Notes
The biggest battles are in our hearts and heads
Abram has just scored a great victory, and credited God with this through his giving of the first tithe in the Bible. Yet despite this evidence of God’s reliability something is nagging away at Abram that requires God to tell him not to be afraid, and that he will defend him and give him a great reward. Abram’s deep sadness and worry was centred on not having an heir. This was a big deal. It didn’t matter how much money and wealth he had – if he had no-one to pass this on to, what was the point! Sometimes the highs in our life only seem to highlight our lows. What are some of your deep fears, or nagging doubts? God deals with Abram as he deals with us – God offers an invitation. This invitation is to believe in Him – to place our trust and our faith in Him. Abram does this and it goes down in history. Being right with God is not ignoring our questions or holding onto our doubts while doing the right thing. It is putting ourselves in a place where we say, maybe like Abram, “You made the whole universe, I want that creativity and power at work in my life. I want to put my life in your hands and control. I know it’s in this I’ll be satisfied.” As the apostle Paul will later reflect in Romans, this is all that God requires – meeting us, forgiving us and fulfilling us.

Genesis 15 v 7-11
God said to Abram, “I am the LORD who led you out of Ur of Babylonia so that I could give you this land to own.”
But Abram said, “Lord GOD, how can I be sure that I will own this land?”
The LORD said to Abram, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old male sheep, a dove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought them all to God. Then Abram killed the animals and cut each of them into two pieces, laying each half opposite the other half. But he did not cut the birds in half. Later, large birds flew down to eat the animals, but Abram chased them away.

Notes 
Bring me your stereo, your video and your mobile!
Sacrifice is something slightly strange and alien to us. Some of us may have given something up for Lent (you have my admiration if you did!), some may even have given up food or other things for a fast. Yet, God asking us to bring certain valuable things to sacrifice to Him is something we might consider as mishearing what God is saying! Yet Abram didn’t, he responded in obedience. The descriptions of what he brought and how he dealt with the different animals make sense to the later generations who would follow the sacrifice system. Yet this sacrifice is special, it sets a pattern whereby we offer things to God out of obedience, rather than to remedy a sin or a wrong doing (See 1 Samuel 15:22). God calls we respond, not out of desire to get right with Him, or stay in his good books, but in expectation of what this might be and result in. Abram is clearly actively waiting on the end point of this sacrifice – he defends his response against the birds that try to steal away the possibility of seeing it fulfilled. How do we respond when we hear, or sense, God asking us to do something. Are we prepared to fight a little to hang in there until it makes sense, are we prepared to do things in the first place that may cost us? We have an opportunity to respond to God in this way every time we worship – listen, respond, give and expect.

Genesis 15 v 12-16
As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came. Then the LORD said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers and travel in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and be cruel to them for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land, taking great wealth with them. And you, Abram, will die in peace and will be buried at an old age. After your great-great-grandchildren are born, your people will come to this land again. It will take that long, because I am not yet going to punish the Amorites for their evil behavior.”

Notes
Dream sequence
The dream sequence – a gift to film makers every where! Need to communicate bits of the plot left out in previous acts, use a dream sequence. Need to create a sense of dark foreboding at what might envelope the lead character, use a dream sequence. Need to pretend that the death of the main character didn’t actually happen, you’ve guessed it! Dreams do speak to us. Mainly they communicate things that we are struggling with and wrestling with in our own minds. Sometimes, though they are used by God to send special messages. The deep sleep and darkness described here are very much the language of film. We are meant to sense a mood of awe, uncertainty and being in the presence of an awesome power. This is a dream in which God will speak – in fact reveal key elements of a historical plot that will span three books of the Old Testament. This is important information that Abram will need to remember – his life is part of a bigger picture, God’s promise to him of an heir is not just a personal favour, but an element of importance in God’s story with humanity. I don’t often think of my life in terms of God’s grand scheme of things. Most of us have a narrow focus on our immediate struggles and issues. This passage reminds us that God may have other things planned for how he will deal with our lives, and believe it or not, these plans could influence the generations to come. 

Genesis 15 v 17-21
After the sun went down, it was very dark. Suddenly a smoking firepot and a blazing torch passed between the halves of the dead animals. So on that day the LORD made an agreement with Abram and said, “I will give to your descendants the land between the river of Egypt and the great river Euphrates. This is the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

Notes
Which came first the smoke pot or the cloud?
The Bible is a complex book, indeed set of books. The smoke pot and the blazing touch are examples of this complexity. God has just revealed to Abram 400 of Israel’s history and has promised that despite the slavery they will face – they will not be forsaken and God will lead them out of this back into their promised land with increased riches. The smoke pot and blazing torch appear as a sign of God’s commitment to this promise – or covenant. 400 years later a pillar of cloud and fire will lead the Israelite in the very rescue that has been foretold. Was this incident given to see Abram as forerunner to Israel, or did God choose to use a pillar of cloud and fire to later remind the Israelites (as Abram’s descendents) of the origin on this promise? Whatever may be the case (and it’s probably both!) this promise is as important for us to remember as it was to the Israelites. God makes a promise to Abram and signs it with the legal signature of the day (the cutting of the animals and their burning). This was a binding ‘covenant’ that God did not have to enter into, but chose to. We live in the wake of this action and see it reflected in the ultimate covenant God makes to us in Christ. In this ‘new covenant’ God not only initiates a promise, but pays the price himself. The inheritance, for those who believe through faith, is not mere land, but eternal life. As can be seen as we trace the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abram – when God commits to something, He delivers.

Genesis 16 v 1-5
Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children, but she had a slave girl from Egypt named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, “Look, the LORD has not allowed me to have children, so have sexual relations with my slave girl. If she has a child, maybe I can have my own family through her.”
Abram did what Sarai said. 3 It was after he had lived ten years in Canaan that Sarai gave Hagar to her husband Abram. (Hagar was her slave girl from Egypt.)
Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai badly. Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is your fault. I gave my slave girl to you, and when she became pregnant, she began to treat me badly. Let the LORD decide who is right—you or me.”

Notes
It’s not unusual
At first glance this might seem like a bit of a ‘cop out’. Sarai and Abram, though being promised the blessing of children, have decided to take matters into their own hands and find a way through their dilemma apart from God. However, in the near East at this time, a wife giving her slave to her husband as a ‘surrogate mother’ was not uncommon. In fact we ought to be surprised that they had delayed this strategy for so long! After all it was Abram’s offspring that was promised, not Abram and Sarai’s – surely that makes this okay on a technicality! There are three things in this story that we can take as immediate principles for ourselves. Firstly, if you have bright ideas as to how God should do something – it probably isn’t what he has in mind! At least check with Him first to see if this is the solution or pathway he is making available. The story gives no indication that either Abram or Sarai did this. Secondly, if you are in a situation of relying on God for something where another person is involved – make sure you talk to each other and make sure they are talking to God! God will later give Sarai a stake hold in this faith journey, but maybe her reaction here is because of a lack of involvement in the spiritual highpoints of this journey. Finally, always think ahead – decisions have consequences. Hagar’s response to becoming pregnant was outrageous in this culture, but not entirely unexpected. If she was ‘fruitful’ then surely she had a claim to be number one wife. In the rush to see the positives of this solution, maybe the potential downsides were overlooked. All too often these can be the hallmarks of our decisions.

Genesis 16 v 6-12
But Abram said to Sarai, “You are Hagar’s mistress. Do anything you want to her.” Then Sarai was hard on Hagar, and Hagar ran away.
The angel of the LORD found Hagar beside a spring of water in the desert, by the road to Shur.
The angel said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave girl, where have you come from? Where are you going?”
Hagar answered, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.”
The angel of the LORD said to her, “Go home to your mistress and obey her.” The angel also said, “I will give you so many descendants they cannot be counted.”
The angel added,
“You are now pregnant, and you will have a son.
You will name him Ishmael, because the LORD has heard your cries.
Ishmael will be like a wild donkey.
He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him.
He will attack all his brothers.”

Notes
You can run – but you can’t hide!
Sarai and Abram misplayed this one badly. Instead of taking responsibility Abram shirked it! Instead of responding in fairness, with her appropriate authority, Sarai abused and criticized Hagar. No wonder she ran away! Often when we go wrong in our walk with God, or do something we later regret, it seems that a whole stack of bad errors and repercussions can follow. I think this is inevitable. Sin always affects our lives. However, what we see in action in this story is the overwhelming counter balance to the effects of our sin – God’s grace. In this case God himself intervenes in the life of Hagar, who has become at least in her own mind the victim of this triangle. Oddly, God’s promise to Hagar is similar to Abram’s – her descendants will be too numerous to count. She is included in the central promise of the story. However, there is a ‘catch’ in this – obedience! It isn’t so much being obedient to Sarai that Hagar is encouraged to be, but to God. This is a recurring theme in much of scripture on the promises of God. The key is obedience – even when we don’t feel like or don’t want to do it. This is often a hard place to be. Sometimes we will need to look at the promise to motivate us, at other times we will need to demonstrate obedience to be able to realise these promises. Grace will always find us, no matter what we do. Obedience to God however, will never ever do us any harm – even if circumstantially we don’t see any ‘blessing’. 

Genesis 16 v 13-15
The slave girl gave a name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are ‘God who sees me,’ ” because she said to herself, “Have I really seen God who sees me?” So the well there, between Kadesh and Bered, was called Beer Lahai Roi.
Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram, and Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

Notes
What do you call God?
I’m sure most of us use Jesus, Lord, Almighty, Father and a whole host of others. There are several layers to this little snippet from the continuing story of Abram, Sarai and Hagar, but the one thing that strikes me the most is that Hagar named God! Previously in the story God commanded Hagar to name her son Ishmael, later He does some renaming. These names all meant something – often such that people would respond to others on the basis of that name. Even today we have cups and door plaques with the meaning of names on them. God doesn’t rebuke Hagar for giving Him a name, but it’s something I’ve never really thought about doing. Hagar’s name is directly connected to her experience of God – seeing her and coming to her. We don’t have the same ability to give names with meaning as in this story. The way it was done was to make a name that sounded like the phrase you wanted to communicate. “You are ‘God who cares for me’” could become ‘Godcaresforme’, which we could shorten to ‘Gocafomi’. By now you think I’ve lost the plot! My point is that in an intimate relationship we do invent names. If God has done something significant in your life we may not be able to shorten it to a decent sounding proper name, but you could at least think about what some of these things are and have an experiment!

word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes