“Offspring”

This is the second sermon in ERC’s Lenten series, CO▽EN△NT, on God’s relationship with Abraham.

God makes His covenant with Abram in Genesis 15. The central promise God makes in this covenant relationship is offspring for Abram, as many as the stars. But the powerful hinge of this chapter is verse 6:

“And he believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.”

~ Genesis 15:6, ESV

Because Abram believed God, God declared Abram right and good, and his sin was covered. The same righteousness —  right-ness — that God awarded to Abram because of his faith, God has offered to us in Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord.

Abram, by God’s grace, opens himself to the possibility that God will do what God says, not because of who Abram is, but entirely and purely because of who God is. God invites us to do the same.

If you are weary, because you have been striving to win God’s favor through your hard work or your good behavior — convinced that perfectionism will protect you — God invites you this morning to rest in the promise that He already loves you as much as He can. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. If you have been holding God at arm’s length, fearful that His free gift of acceptance and forgiveness is too good to be true — that if He really knew what you’d done, He could never love you — God invites you this morning to discover that He does know, everything, and He loves you all the same. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. God has already dealt with sin — with your sin — fully, not merely covering it or hiding it, but removing it completely, washing it away in the pure life of His Son Jesus our Lord.

May this be our prayer:

“I believe; help my unbelief!”

~ Mark 9:24, ESV