Leading The Way

Guest (Female): The amazing grace of God, as shown in the Old Testament. On this episode of Leading The Way audio.

Dr. Michael Youssef: What did Abraham do to deserve this magnificent act of unilateral and eternal grace? Nothing. What did I do to deserve the love of Christ, the forgiveness of my sins, and the assurance of eternal life? Nothing. If there is anything I deserve, it would be judgment. But instead, I receive grace upon grace upon grace.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. He is a best-selling author and a long-time pastor and teacher with a heart for biblical truth. Today, Dr. Youssef takes you further into the life of Abraham, a man who became the biblical example of faith and how it intersects with God's grace.

As we begin, this reminder that Leading The Way also produces a weekly television broadcast and lots of encouraging video content. You can watch online and learn where and when to watch locally when you visit ltw.org. Do that later, though, because right now, Dr. Youssef begins today's teaching time.

Dr. Michael Youssef: In the Bible, we often see God making a covenant. God speaks as the covenant-making God as He makes covenants with people. But the covenants that God makes with man are far from two equals. Indeed, it is a covenant where God takes upon Himself 100% of the responsibility.

For example, we see that God made a covenant with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15, where He promised Jesus the Messiah will come. Then we see Him making a covenant with Noah after the flood. Here in Genesis chapter 15, we see Him making a covenant with Abraham. After this exhausting experience, Abraham gets into a funk.

In the first few verses of chapter 15, Abraham was looking for assurance from the Lord. He was looking for a confirmation that all of that God promised him is going to come to pass. He was looking for a word of affirmation of what he knew that God promised 10 years earlier. Don't ever forget, he was 75 at the time. Now he's 85. He was looking for a word of encouragement that he can keep on counting stars despite of the fact that he and Sarah are not getting any younger.

God not only assures him, He said, "I am your shield, I'm your great reward." No matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, I'm going to keep My word to you, Abraham. When Abraham was still not sure, even though God said, "I am your shield, I'm your great reward," the Lord can sense that he's still not certain. But God is so gracious, even when we are not certain.

He's saying, "How could this happen when Sarah and I are not getting any younger?" And so God does something so stupendous, God does something so magnificent, He does something so unprecedented, He does something that is unheard of. Not only that He makes a covenant with Abraham, but God commits Himself and His honor in a tangible demonstration of how God is going to keep His word no matter what.

There's something here I want you to learn from Abraham. I don't want you to miss it. I want you to see how God was not offended by Abraham's unloading of his burdens before the Lord. God was not offended when Abraham poured his innermost thoughts in the presence of God. What he was thinking and how he's feeling, he poured it all out to God, and God was never offended.

Don't you think God knows if you've got volcanoes inside of you or not? Don't you think He already knows that it is unhealthy for you to repress how you really feel and what you're thinking? Do you think that God will fall off His throne if you come clean and unload on God of how you're feeling and what's going on? No, because God already knows what's inside of us. He longs for us to verbalize it. He longs for us to speak it out to Him, for that is the mark of an honest relationship with God.

Look with me at verse 8, Genesis 15:8. Here is Abraham, with utmost respect to God, but he's pouring out. He said, "Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will possess these promises?" Does this represent unbelief on the part of Abraham? No, absolutely not. In Luke chapter 1 verse 18, when God supernaturally promised Zechariah the priest that he's going to give him a son, being John the Baptist, he didn't believe it, so he was struck dumb until the baby was born and then finally God let his tongue. That's unbelief.

But not all asking, not all questioning, is unbelief. On the cross, Jesus, the second member of the Trinity who He and the Father have been one before all eternity in intimacy, hung on that cross. Though He knew the answer, He asked why. Sometimes to ask why is not an unbelief. God understands our weaknesses. He understands our weaknesses more than we do. In fact, that is why the Apostle Paul said, "Even when our conscience condemn us, He is greater than our conscience."

To be sure, God does not wink at our disobedience. He does not wink at our sin. He does not wink at our failure, but He gives us the strength to overcome. Like the man in Mark chapter 9 verse 24, he came to Jesus crying out and said, "I believe, help my unbelief." That is a true, genuine pouring of the heart to God. And that is why in response to Abraham's query, God enacted a covenant with him.

God actually gave him a tangible sign when He made that covenant with him. God gave him His word, but He realized that this man is weak like we all are, so He graciously gave him a sign. God sometimes does that. When He makes a covenant, He gives a tangible sign. When He made a covenant with Noah after the flood, He gave him a tangible sign, the rainbow.

When Gideon came to Him twice, not sure, uncertain, God graciously twice took care of that fleece. He said, "I want it wet," He did it wet. He didn't want it dry, he got it. God is so gracious and He's merciful. God responded to Hezekiah's request in 2 Kings chapter 20 by making the shadow of the sundial move backward.

There are times in my life when I'm not absolutely sure if it is God or it's me. And before I run headlong, I cry to God, "Just show me a sign. Just let me know that this is You, and I'm ready to obey." And God graciously, every time, gives me a clear sign. Covenant in its basic definition, the word covenant means promise. In this case, a promise that is made by God to Abraham.

I personally prefer the word promise than the word covenant. The word covenant sometimes comes across as, "Well, let's make a deal." God, You do this and I do this, and if I do this, God, would You do this? It doesn't mean that. Sadly, many of us don't keep our side of the bargain. But not so with God. As we see here in Genesis 15, because God's covenant of promise is unilateral, God took it all upon Himself.

All of God's covenants are unilateral. When He makes them, He makes them unilaterally. Secondly, all of God's covenants are eternal. Not temporary or just for a season, they are eternal. Thirdly, all of God's covenants or promises that He makes are based on His grace, not on our performance. What a great God we worship. None of us deserve the promise of God through Jesus Christ for salvation. I know I don't.

The Bible tells us in Galatians and in Romans that all of the sevenfold promises that God gave Abraham, all of them are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The descendants of Jesus Christ are numerous as the stars and the sands of the sea. First, it is a one-sided covenant. It's unilateral. You may know that an oath, or a promise, or a covenant, or a contract is executed in different cultures, in different countries, in different parts of the world, differently.

In Africa, there is a tribe called the Hausa tribe. They have no word for a contract or covenant because when they do make a covenant, what the two parties of the covenant do is spit at each other's feet. The Bible translators, when they tried to translate the Bible that God is a covenant-making God, basically wrote down and said, "He is the one who spits at your feet." And they began to understand what it means.

In America, we go to court and raise our right hand and say, "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." In the old days, there used to be a Bible. Now they moved the Bible. Nonetheless, that's a way by which we make a promise. In Abraham's day, a covenant is made based on a ceremony. This is what was done in that day.

Look how gracious God is that He did something not strange, not unusual, not something Abraham could never understand or comprehend. He came down to Abraham's level to what is familiar to him, to what he knows happens when people make a contract. What do they do? They cut an animal in half. That's the ceremony. They put the two halves across from each other and the two contracting parties would walk in the space between those two halves.

That is how covenant was conducted in those days. And so God says to Abraham, "I'm going to do it the way you understand it." And so He cuts the animals in half. Instead of Abraham and God walking through the space, he noticed something stupendous, unprecedented, unheard of. God alone walks in the middle. He takes the full responsibility.

The reason they do this ceremonially, as we study in history, is to announce to the world and to those who are witnessing the covenant that if any of us will break the covenant, what happened to that animal will happen to him. The shedding of blood was a clear indication of the seriousness by which a covenant is taken.

If you look at verse 17 of Genesis 15, you'll see what I'm talking about. God alone passes through the pieces by Himself while Abraham is just sitting tight, trying to keep the wild animals and the birds away from the sacrifice. Not only did God come down to Abraham's level, but God assures Abraham that He is not only a covenant-making God, but He's a covenant-keeping God.

Hebrews chapter 6 beginning at verse 13 says, "And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised." God shows Abraham the furnace, the refiner's fire, and then He shows him the blazing torch, all symbolizing God's perseverance. God's promises are unilateral. Secondly, they are eternal. All of His promises are always eternal.

They are unchangeable. They are unshakable. God is not sitting in heaven when a person repents of their sins and becomes born again and adopted into God's family and writes their name in the Book of Life with a pencil, and the moment they mess up, He turns the pencil over and erases that name. Then they repent and come back to God, so He writes their name back. Then they mess up again and God erases. No, that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God loved us, and He loved us to the end. His love is eternal. The names of every believer in Jesus Christ, all His children whom He adopted, are written in the Book of Life by no other than the blood of Jesus Christ Himself. Nobody can erase. The reason I am sure is because God's love for us was always there before we were ever born.

His love for us was always there before we ever responded to His love. His pure grace is what caused us to respond in obedience. It is His gracious love that caused us to be delighted in loving Him back. It is His pure grace and love that caused us to delight in serving Him. God's love is not dependent on whims and moods.

God's love is not limited to a moment of time or a space. God's love is always, for better or for worse, our worst and His better. No matter what we do, His love and promise of love is everlasting. To be sure, the scars of our rebellion and our disobedience will always be there. It's like a mommy that says to her little boy, "Don't touch the stove, you'll burn." And the boy tries it and he gets burnt.

He said, "I'm sorry, Mommy," as they were going into the ambulance to get some medical help. Of course, the mom forgives him, but that scar might stay for life. Those scars of our disobedience will always be there to remind us of our disobedience, but it doesn't mean that God does not forgive us.

Please listen carefully. Don't let anyone mislead you and tell you that the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath, but the God of the New Testament is the God of love. That is a lie from the pit of hell. It is the same God in the Old Testament who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament. All you need to do is take them to this passage here in Genesis chapter 15. Show them before the law was ever given. Show them the incredible love and grace of God that He poured on Abraham.

The promise of God to Abraham and to you is unilateral and eternal. When you see the promise of God to Abraham, you understand why we have one true God consistent throughout the scripture. God exercises His love by choosing us and electing us and bringing us to Himself. Then His love is being exercised as He perseveres with us, with our foolishness and with our disobedience.

He continuously perseveres with us. God's love is a steadfast love, not an emotional and changeable love where He gets mad at us when we're not good and He gets happy when we're good. No, that is a human image of God. I am convinced that the reason why we have a messed-up view of God is because we have a messed-up view of love.

I hear people always talking, "I'm in love, I'm out of love. I'm in love, I'm out of love." It's like I'm in the shower, I'm out of the shower. That's not how God loves us. God's love is unilateral. God's love is eternal. That is why the Bible said He took our infirmity. He carried our sorrows. He removed our sin. He took upon Himself our deserved punishment.

He did all of this not so that He may forgive you one day and turn on you the other, or so that He can change from day to day or from season to season. No, it's for eternity all the way to heaven. That's why Paul could say, "Who can separate us from the love of God?" In the end, he says nothing will separate us from the love of God.

God is not changing dependent on our faithfulness or lack of it. No. I plead that you would at some point just reflect on the unbelievable, unmerited love of God. His love and therefore His covenant of promise is unilateral. His love and therefore His covenant of promise is eternal. Thirdly, His love and therefore His covenant of promise is totally undeserved.

Human pride and human arrogance the way it is, we want to take credit for only what God could have done. What did Abraham do to deserve this magnificent act of unilateral and eternal grace? Nothing. He was an idol worshiper in Ur of Chaldeans. What did I deserve? What did you deserve? What did I do to deserve the love of Christ, the forgiveness of my sins, and the assurance of eternal life? Nothing.

As a matter of fact, I can only speak for me, I did something that is worse than nothing, and that is I rebelled against God. I shook my fist at God. I falsely accused God. If there's anything I deserve, it would be judgment. But instead, I receive grace upon grace upon grace.

Now I know in this day and age, there are so many churches that are teaching stuff that perverts the grace of God and turning it into a license, but that's a subject for another time. Why do you think I lose it every time when I talk about the grace of God? Because it pleased God and nothing else. It pleased God to save me. It pleased God to save you, and nothing else.

My Jesus did not walk through the cut sacrifice. He did not just get His feet messed up with blood as He walked through the pieces. He Himself became the sacrifice. He Himself had His body torn on the cross. He shed His own blood. He offered His own sinless body for sinners like us. His love then compelled me to come. His love wooed me. His grace constrained me.

That is why I made God a promise that for the rest of my life, I'll spend my life thanking Him, praising Him, honoring Him, and serving Him and lifting up His great name, that magnificent name of Jesus, for all to see. For He loved us first, and He loved us to the end. And His love is unilateral, His love is eternal, and His love is gracious.

Guest (Male): Thank you for taking time in your day to listen to Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Do remember, if you want to catch up on any Leading The Way messages, you can do that at ltw.org. You can also download the app, subscribe to the podcast, or ask your smart speaker to play Dr. Youssef.

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Dr. Michael Youssef: As we bring today's episode of Leading The Way to a close, allow me to invite you also to watch Leading The Way television. Visit ltw.org for details. That's ltw.org.

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