In Genesis 15:1, we see a moment when Abram (soon to be Abraham) encounters God. God reminds Abram that despite all of his circumstances, he can trust God’s good provision because God is faithful. Let’s unpack how we can trust God’s faithfulness to deliver us, even in ways we may never expect.

Have you ever finished a big project or task that took a lot of time and energy and then afterwards found yourself saying, “Well now what?” Maybe it was a big home improvement project, and once you complete it you find yourself not able to really even enjoy it because all of your energy was pent up in making it happen. Or on the other end of the spectrum, you complete a big task, only to find out there are still a million unrelated other tasks to be completed so the joy is pretty short-lived. In some extreme cases this can even lead to a minor depression. There are some bio-chemical reasons for that we’ll get to in a moment.

But sometimes it’s something far more trivial, like when I finished a 3-year watch through of the entire Stargate franchise. I set out to watch all 10 seasons of SG:1 and all 5 seasons of Atlantis, including the two TV Movies, all in chronological order. It took me about 3 years (I also usually watched 1 episode a day, and missed a LOT of days). I finished it and honestly may have experienced something like grief because now all my little sci-fi friends were gone and I didn’t know what to do.

That’s a silly, trivial example, but I would bet that many of you have experienced something like that after a show or book series has finished.

So know that all of these things are common and most, if not all of us, experience it at some point, at some level.

There are various psychological reasons we may feel something missing, in large part due to the way we become emotionally and mentally connected to a sense of purpose. In some ways, we can bind our identity to the things we do, and so when that thing is no more, we feel a little wayward.

It’s also, in part, chemical. When we aspire toward something, our brain releases dopamine, which is the good stuff. We like that. So we continue to aspire, because our brain tells us that it feels good to do so, but once we achieve the thing, there’s nothing left to aspire to in that realm, so our brain can experience a chemical dopamine deficiency that causes us to feel a certain way.

I bring up all this nerdy neuroscience because it’s possible that in Genesis 15, Abram found himself in a similar predicament. Here, we can learn about what Abram may have been thinking and feeling not through what Abram says or does, but through how God responds to him.

In Genesis 15:1, the Word says:

“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’”‌

Old Testament Promises aren’t usually for us

Before we dive totally in, I do want to be very clear and very careful about one thing. Sometimes we read these really great, encouraging promises in Scripture and want to make them about us. It doesn’t help that people put them on shirts and Bibles and whatever else. While all Scripture is certainly God-breathed and profitable for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16), we also need to be very careful about wholesale applying to ourselves the promises made to specific people about specific things.

Obviously there are some promises that apply to us, like the promise that God would not flood the earth again. We get to continue under that promise daily. The promises of Christ are particularly encouraging and advantageous, especially the promise of salvation for his people.

But sometimes blessings for Israel or ancient people are just that: blessings for a particular people in a particular time.

For example, I think it’s ironic that people will put Jeremiah 29:11 (“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”) on a T-shirt as a daily encouragement and people will teach that the promise is for us today, but nobody is out there warning about the curses in Jeremiah that may or may not apply to us today. You see what I mean?

We really like applying Jeremiah 29:11 to our lives, but nobody’s out there wearing a shirt with Jeremiah 30:11 “…I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished.”‌

So for one, be consistent in how you approach Scripture always, but it’s also very important to remember this meant something very specific to the people it was written about and written to.‌

We can learn much from the Bible, but it’s not always about us or directly for us.

Little bit of a rabbit trail there, but it needs to be stated. Are we good? Alright, let’s move on.

Abraham’s Victory in Battle

To help us understand what’s happening here in this great encouragement that God brings to Abram, let’s walk back through the last chapter and get the full picture.

So in Genesis 14, we see a big battle scene. There were these four powerful kings who had invaded the Valley of Siddim some 12 years before and had subjected the kings and peoples there to their rule. The conquered kings eventually got fed up and went to war, where they got smoked. In the collateral damage, Lot (Abram’s nephew) was taken along with all of his people and possessions.

Then you have this super cool moment where Abram rallies together 318 of his best trained men, along with his allies, and they go take on these kings. They ambush them at night and manage to whoop them and drive them out of the land. In victory, they get to bring back all of Lots people and stuff.

Then there’s a very interesting encounter in the aftermath. Abram returns after defeating all the kings and meets Melchizedek (king of Salem) and the king of Sodom. Abram gives Melchizedek a tenth of the spoils but rejects the offer of the king of Sodom. In doing so, Abram chooses to not take anything for himself beyond taking care of the men who fought with him.‌

I recap all this just to make it clear what we’re talking about when this verse begins with “After these things.”

So after the big cinematic battle and then reconciliation of the spoils, God speaks.

He tells Abram not to be afraid, he reminds him that he is his shield, and he affirms that his reward will be great. I think we see three great things to keep in mind here. There is a lot of encouragement found here, as well as a strong challenge.

What immediately jumps out to me is that the very first thing that God tells Abram is to not fear. Why start there? I think there are a few very good reasons that Abram may have been fearful in that moment.

Abram was just a man with a large estate and a few hundred household servants. He was certainly wealthy and certainly had far more resources and manpower than was normal for the day. But he wasn’t a king. He couldn’t compare.‌

Have you ever thought about how small Abram must have felt in that world? He was a wealthy herdsman caught up in the world of kings and wars. His enemies could crush him and take his resources on a whim. For that matter, even his allies could decide that they would rather own his people and possessions rather than parlay with Abram. And yet he was allowed to remain.

So in the face of all that, he must’ve been experiencing some fear of retribution from the kings he defeated or even fear of the king of Sodom making a claim. Now to be fair, Scripture doesn’t tell us outright that Abram feared these things, but it would be completely rational for him to. I certainly would have. I believe there’s a good reason that God first reminds Abram to not fear.

God addresses either something that Abram was currently feeling, or he addresses something that Abram could potentially begin feeling.

Much like the examples we started with, after a big high from doing something great, there is often a big low. But this is the good news for us:

‌God Meets Us in Our Condition

Whether Abram was experiencing fear, or whether God’s encouragement was preventing Abram from falling into fear, the point remains the same: God comes to us in our predicament. This is not out of the ordinary for God. It’s a part of who he is and how he has chosen to interact with us.

The best possible example of this is found in Jesus Christ. God in the flesh stepped into the world and joined us in our human predicament to make the ultimate sacrifice, being 100% man (while continuing to be 100% God).

Philippians 2:6–8 reminds us that “though [Jesus] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

‌Hebrews 4:15, likewise, reminds us that Jesus is a great high priest that can sympathize with our every struggle.

Jesus is the biggest and most impactful example of God reaching into our predicament to bring hope (and the hope that Jesus brought is something altogether special and eternal! Don’t forget that!), but there are plenty of other examples of God meeting us throughout Scripture.‌

If you look all the way back at the fall, after Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world (which, by the way, thanks great-grandpa and grandma for that one), God seeks them out in their hiding places. Although there was certainly a rebuke, there was also a blessing and a promise.

Another great example is in 1 Kings 19. The story may be familiar. Elijah has his epic showdown with the prophets of Baal and calls upon God to bring fire from heaven to eat up the sacrifice. Then in victory, Elijah goes ahead and kills all of the opposing prophets. Pretty great moment, right?‌

But then in the very next chapter, we are introduced to the same Elijah but now he’s on the run, he’s depressed, and he even begs the Lord to take his life and put him out of his misery. One of the greatest victories in the Old Testament, and Elijah finds himself alone, depressed, and without answer.

The Lord meets Elijah in the wilderness and tends to him and brings him hope. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s patient compassion.

Again, we don’t know for sure if Abram was in a similar state here, but we can certainly infer by the fact that the Lord leads in reminding Abram to not fear that he was likely feeling some fear in some sense.

But God came to him in his predicament with the answer: “Do not be afraid.”

God doesn’t rebuke Abram for being afraid, nor does he invalidate Abram’s feelings. God gently reminds him that he is in control. To be clear, there are certainly times when the Lord has to intervene in less gentle ways with us. Mainly because we’re knuckleheads. But often, God is gentle first.

He also understands that sometimes words aren’t enough, so not only does he remind Abram to not be afraid, he reminds him why he doesn’t need to be afraid. That brings us to our second point:

‌God Is the Solution‌

The simple truth is that God himself is the solution to our predicament. The answer for Abram’s fear is found in a character attribute of God: God is our shield.

“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield.”‌

This is a poignant reminder for Abram. Remember, he is so small in this world of kings—a Hebrew herdsmen caught in the crossfire. And he kicked the hornets nest. But he need not be afraid because the Lord is his shield. It’s not Abram’s allies who are his protector. It’s not even his 318 trained men. His shield is God.

The Psalms are full of reminders that God is our shield, which points to the truth that this attribute is core to God’s nature.

One such example is Psalm 33:20: “Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.” (Emphasis added)

I love this one in Psalm 18:30: “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”‌ (Emphasis added)

God’s nature is to protect his people—he is our good refuge.

What does that mean for us today? God’s nature and his character are the answer to our predicament.

It’s not about what God will do, but simply who he is.

So where are you today? What is your battle? What is your struggle? Maybe you feel like you’re surrounded and you can’t overcome. How can God’s character address your predicament?

• Anxiety: God is sovereign (he is in control)

  • Colossians 1:17 - “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

  • We can rest because He reigns!

• Addiction: God is sufficient

  • 2 Corinthians 12:9 - “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

  • God is bigger than the addiction and he is strong when we are weak.

• Exhaustion: God is our restoration and rest

  • Psalm 23:3 - “He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

  • Hebrews 4:10 - “for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

• Distant: God is near and present

  • Read Psalm 117 (the shortest chapter in the Bible) and pray through it every day.

• Anger: God is compassionate

  • Exodus 34:6 - “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”

  • As we become more like God, we become more patient in our anger as well. Lean into his compassion to learn compassion.

• Depression: God is deliverer

  • Psalm 34:18–19 - “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

  • I also want to be clear that if you are struggling with clinical depression, you can and should seek medical help. There is hope and help to be had there, and you’re not a bad Christian for experiencing it!

Those are just a few examples that came to mind as I prayed over this and talked with people in preparation. There are many, many more struggles that we deal with. But I want you to see that God meets us in our predicament.

The solution to our predicament is his presence.

That brings us to the third promise:

God Is Faithful to Deliver

The final word that God brings to Abram in his vision is that “your reward will be very great.”

Now this is where I want us to especially be careful. We see verses like this and we get all giddy. We like rewards. The only reason that my son Lincoln eats his dinner is because if he finishes it all, we give him a piece of candy as a reward. It’s okay, they’re just baby teeth, he’ll get new ones.

We really enjoy rewards. I just want to make sure that we don’t read verses like this and assume that we are promised something we aren’t. This is God reaffirming his commitment to Abram from back in Genesis 12. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn anything from the text.

What we see is that when God makes a promise, he keeps it. Always. We’ll talk more about what that might mean for us in a moment. And for Abram, in part, his reward is a legacy much bigger than himself.

But this is also a loaded statement for Abram, I believe.

Remember the backdrop of this verse. It comes right on the heels of Genesis 14 where we see Abram reject the worldly offer from the king of Sodom and claim that God alone will be given credit. So Abram did not compromise his integrity in taking ungodly gain. Remember, from a worldly standard, he was 100% entitled to whatever spoils he desired. He was the victor, and to the victor go the spoils.

But he chose to wholly disassociate himself from the worldly powers and principalities, to ensure that the only power who could claim responsibility to Abram’s success is the Lord.

It’s easy to wonder if at this point, perhaps Abram felt a small sense of regret in not taking the king of Sodom up on his offer—there was a lot of wealth and personal gain at stake. Have you ever felt something like that? Let’s be honest. Sometimes you make the right decision, but then in your flesh you kinda regret it.

And again, we don’t know for sure if Abram felt this at all, maybe he didn’t and I’m projecting my own terribleness into the text. Either way, we know that God re-affirms to Abram that his reward will be great. There’s probably a little praise for Abram here. Something like, “You denied your reward from victory, thank you for remembering that your reward from me will be greater than anything the world has to offer.”

So you see, this reward that God is speaking of will not be found in earthly, carnal gain. It will be something altogether immeasurable and greater than anything the world has to offer.

God’s reward is so much sweeter than anything we could earn on our own.

The world may offer something that is good for a time, but just like candy for my son, at some point it’ll rot your teeth and you will regret it.‌

I also want to draw attention to some subtext here. Our reward from God may come in completely unexpected or hard to understand ways.

As you read on in chapter 15, you see that Abram certainly has some questions about how all of this will go down. But God will reaffirm his promise.

Here’s the crazy thing I want us to understand here: Abram (soon to be Abraham) doesn’t get to see his full reward come to pass. Not in this life, anyway.

Let’s trace the chronology here, we’ll have to fast forward just a bit.

Spoiler alert: God is faithful to Abraham and grants him a son named Isaac. Abraham is 100 years old when this happens.‌

We see later that Isaac is 40 years old when he marries Rebekah. Then it’s another 20 years before they have the twins, Jacob and Esau. When Jacob (who will become Israel) is born, Abraham is about 160 years old. But Abraham dies at the age of 175, when the twins are 15 years old.

‌Why does this matter? I want you to think about this: God promised Abraham that he would father a great nation that would number more than the stars in the sky or the sand in the sea.

One child as an heir (and another child from Hagar) and two grandchildren are hardly a great nation. Even the smallest nations in our world today number in the 10s of thousands. But this promise doesn’t even show a glimpse of being fulfilled until about 60 years after Abraham dies when Jacob starts fathering his children which will become the 12 tribal heads of Israel.

So the point is this: Abram never saw the promise of a great nation fulfilled. But he was faithful to God and trusted the long game. He was measuring his legacy in decades and centuries, not days and months. Abram sowed an unseen seed.‌

So here’s the word for you in this: God will fulfill his good promises but you may never see it. Nevertheless, remain faithful, because his reward is good.‌

You may never know how God will reward your faithfulness and your obedience, but the impact can be immeasurable.

For those with children: the seeds of the gospel you sow today will reap rewards for generations. The truths and priorities that you teach your children will echo for an eternity. What are you teaching them? To harp on something many have said before (if you folks would get it through your head, we wouldn’t have to keep repeating it) what priorities are you showing your children?‌

Many parents struggle with finding the time to keep their children invested the church and in their faith. We claim to be too busy for all the activities going on, so we shrug it off. But when it comes to sports, we have no problem being at 2-3 practices a week, 2 games a week (more when their are tournaments) and shelling out hundreds of dollars for equipment, league dues, and travel expenses (while also not being faithful in stewardship because we don’t have the money for it).

That is not imbuing a legacy of faith in your children, that’s teaching them that there are way more important things to do with our time and resources than walking in obedience to God. To be clear, it’s not a bad thing to be involved in sports. But when we prioritize it over walking in obedience, there’s a problem.

‌The same can be said of academics. I don’t want to downplay the value of scholastics at all—but it can’t be the main thing. We struggle to keep up with the church calendar or family discipleship, but we’ll spend a dozen hours a week working on homework and studying and plugging into various clubs and extra-curriculars. Not that those things are inherently wrong, but they can’t be the highest priority. It doesn’t say that Abraham scored a 30 on his ACT and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Abram believed. And believed it enough to walk in obedience and walk with God.‌

Do you believe it?

We wonder why Gen Z is the least churched generation in a long time, and this isn’t the only reason, but it’s a big one: we started a generation ago by showing our kids that sports, academics, and extra-curriculars are more important than the gospel, and then we’re surprised that when left their own, they aren’t walking with God and they aren’t teaching their children to do the same.

For those with older kids, or no kids, or the chronologically superior… you’re not off the hook either. You have a legacy to leave where you are. You may never see the reward, but you must stand faithful nonetheless. You are far too valuable to the church.

For those who are single or still students, your faithfulness can (and should) begin now. The seeds you sow in your life and others for the gospel will germinate and multiply in incredible ways if you are faithful. Your reward will be great and will bear fruit in ways you can’t imagine.

Let me tell you a little bit about my own church.

We are celebrating our 60th anniversary this year. 60 years as a body of faithful believers ministering to our community! Almost every single person who was faithful then is no longer a part of the church for one reason or another. They never got to see how their faithfulness has been rewarded.

When we get to see baptisms on a Sunday morning—a testimony of one who has come to saving faith in Christ and have begun a brand new life in him—how sweet is that! Those faithful believers who met in a home down the road 60 years ago never knew how the legacy they began would continue today.‌

Think about how incredible that is!

What you do today can be directly traced to somebody’s eternal trajectory being radically and fundamentally altered 60, 70, 100 years from now.

‌You.

It starts today.

It starts with how you serve and love your church. It starts with how you pour the gospel into others.

It starts with how you faithfully keep the gospel front and center in your home with your kids. It starts with making walking with the Lord more important than any single other thing.

It starts with how you lead others to walk in communion with Christ.‌

As you go, do not fear, God secures us through who he is. And the reward is great and mysterious and incredible.

Sow the unseen seed.‌

It’s easy to pour our time, energy, and resources into visible success, but what would it look like to pour yourself into something knowing that you will likely never see the result?

‌Abram sowed the unseen seed by walking in obedience and look where that got him.

‌Let us begin to measure our success not by results but simply by obedience.

Conclusion

‌So what do we do with this? Here are a few takeaways to consider.

‌First, consider where you are. What is your struggle today?

‌Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s something else. Anxiety, addiction, exhaustion, anger, depression, distance, you name it.

‌Second, remember who God is. He is our shield. He is in control. He is sufficient. He is our rest and restoration. He is near. He is patient. He is compassionate. He is our deliverer.

‌Finally, remember that when we sow the seeds of faithfulness, God will deliver. It may be in ways that we never see or never expect. But he is good and he is faithful, and your legacy of obedience today can lead to lives saved for eternity tomorrow.

Believe that.

‌Consider where you are. Remember who God is. Sow the unseen seed.

This post is adapted from a sermon I recently preached at Cherokee Hills Baptist Church. You can watch the whole sermon below, the message starts at about 14:30.