Who Am I and Why Am I Here? How Abraham's Experience Helps Us Answer These Questions for Ourselves

Who Am I and Why Am I Here?

How Abraham’s Experience Helps Us Answer These Questions for Ourselves

 

May 14, 2022

Larry R Evans

 

Introduction

 

Several years ago social scientists from Johns Hopkins University launched a two-year study sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. Forty-eight colleges, 7, 948 students, were surveyed. The students were asked what they considered “very important” to them at that time. Sixteen percent of the students checked “making a lot of money”; 78% said their first goal was “finding a purpose and meaning to my life.” The search for personal meaning has been with us for a long time.

 

Viktor E. Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning suggests that 

“Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life . . .This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. . . Man . . .is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values! (p.99)

This week we have studied “The Covenant with Abraham.” Our study is focused on chapters 15-18 of Genesis.  To get to this point we have a backdrop of Adam and Eve’s exit from the Garden, Noah’s escape from the flood, the dispersion following the confusion at the tower of Babel, and most recently Abraham’s rescue of his nephew Lot. We now come to Genesis 15 where God sets forth His special plan for Abraham.  It begins with a special vision for Abram in which God assures Abram in verse 1, “I am your shield, your very great reward.”  In other words, God is telling Abram, “I will be your future.”Meaning and purpose were bound up with God playing a dominant role in Abram’s life.” To what degree this was to happen was yet to be discovered. This, however, was the foundation on which Abram was to find meaning in his life.

 

Genesis 15:2 suggests that God’s offer wasn’t the kind of assurance Abram was looking for. The very first word after God’s promise was, “But” . . . thank you for the offer “but . . . I remain childless.”  Anytime we respond to God with a, “But” we place ourselves in a position needing to be taught a deeper understanding.  Our ways are not always God’s ways. Our understanding is limited. 

 

QUESTION: What did God do next?

He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars —if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.  (Gen15:5-8)

This is followed by God telling Abram who He was and a purpose God had for him to fulfill.

“I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” (v.7)

How does Abram respond?  Once again he responds with a “But”

But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” (v.8)

Abram’s identity, purpose, and meaning in life are centered on his way of solving the problem.  He finds no satisfactory answer. Can he trust God to deliver on His promises?  We are then told of a very strange sacrifice—an almost absurd way of answering Abram’s search for meaning. We find it in Genesis 15:8-20.  Note VSS 8-11.

But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon. ”

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

To answer Abram’s questions and doubts, the Lord offered to enter into an agreement or contract with Abram.  In an oral culture, special efforts were made to make it clear what the consequences were should the promise not be kept.  It sounds strange to us, but it was understood in Abram’s day. Consider Jeremiah 34:17,18-20

“Therefore, this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me . . .

Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.

The way to make the contract was to walk between the halves of a slain animal.  Knowing his history this must not have been very assuring to Abram.  To break the covenant, to sin, would be agreeing to allow his flesh to be feed to the birds.  The one making the promise was bound to receive the curse should there be a breach in the promise. Abram knew what was at stake!  Now notice verses 11 and 12.

Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

QUESTION: According to Jeremiah 34 what did the birds represent?  The national and spiritual identity of Israel was at stake.  The presence of the birds represented the fact that the enemy had come to devour.  It wasn’t only “Who am I” but “Who are we?” 

 

QUESTION:  What happened next? How did God answer that dilemma?

 

Abram fell into a deep sleep and then what?  “A thick and dreadful darkness came over him.” Abram is told that his descendants will be enslaved for 400 years in a foreign land, but they would then come back. The enactment continues.

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants, I give this land,

Fire is often a symbol of god’s presence, and walking between the parts of the animal was a declaration that what happened to the sacrificial victim would be the fate of the violator of the covenant. At the critical moment, God alone walks between the two parts of the animals.

 

Does this sound familiar?  Do you recall another time when 

·      the sky darkened, 

·      when enemies acted like birds of prey, 

·      when the future of God’s people was at stake 

·      and when God alone bore the price of the curse instead of the guilty?  

Can you think of any other time when so much was at stake?  See Matthew 27:45

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

It was a horrible price to pay.  Jesus paid for it all, He bore the curse of our disobedience. This was a lesson taught so clearly to Abram. During his time questioning God was with him, teaching that he had not been forgotten and that God still had a purpose for him. Do you remember how Genesis 15 began?  God spoke to Abram, 

Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield,

your very great reward. (v.2)

Jesus was his shield because He took what Abram deserved. He was Abram’s future and his identity. His sacrifice gave purpose and meaning to the life of Abram and all of Abraham’s descendants.  

 

Abraham’s problem came because he was not trusting God.  Hebrews 6:19 implies that perhaps, just perhaps, our doubts keep us from letting the “anchor hope” down. If the anchor isn’t all the way down, can we expect it to hold in times of personal storm?

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. (Heb. 6:19,20)

The Lesson Not Remembered

 

There is a principle that runs through Scripture that goes like this: God is more intent on helping us to work out our salvation in and through the suffering we experience than on whisking us out of it.

 

Ellen White put it this way,

And if this is the test of God, He will repeat that test, until your will and your way is made the will and way of God. -- 3LtMs, Lt 30, 1880, par. 14

We saw that when Abram doubted (Gen. 15:2), God reassured him that he would have a son, but it didn’t happen as soon as Abram and Sarah had hoped.  The pain and stigma of not having a child only intensified. 

 

By the time we get to Genesis 16, the pain must have been unbearable for Sarah because she convinced Abraham that she was willing to share him with Hagar. Hagar was a maidservant and Sarah saw herself as being the surrogate mother for the child she would bear! She saw herself more in control of the situation than did Hagar and that spelled trouble.

 

Sarah’s plan is reminiscent of Eve’s.

·      Both Sarah and Eve were persuasive in their effort to lead their spouse away from God’s plan. 

·      Both Abram and Adam listened.  

·      Both Abram and Sarah would pay a terrible price as did Adam and Eve.

·       In the end, both couples lost a son—Cain murdered Able and Hagar departed with Ishmael.

·       But it doesn’t stop there. Both couples said their problem was God’s fault.

So, she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” (Genesis 16:2)

Throughout the chapter, Sari speaks about God but never with God.  Don’t we also tend to do the same thing? We are determined to have things our way and when they don’t happen, it's God’s fault or someone else's!

 

Faith Reconnected

 

Abram’s lack of faith as seen in Genesis 15 broke the flow of his spiritual journey with God. During that time God’s silence is profound. However, in chapter 17 God breaks the silence. He speaks. His silence did not mean He had given up.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (Gen. 17:1,2)

Following the Hagar episode in chapter 15, God’s silence lasted for thirteen years. In chapter 17 He now speaks of the renewal of the already-established covenant. 

“I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (Gen. 17:1,2)

God identified Himself as ‘el Shaddai’ and with that identification, Abram’s own identity and purpose were established with Abraham being—"the Father of many nations” (v.5). The phrase appears 5 other times in Genesis and 31 times in Job.  Jewish interpreters understood ‘el Shaddai to mean “He who is sufficient.”

 

Isn't that our case as well!  Once we surrender our independence, we are given a new name when we are baptized into the “name” of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  With the new “name” we have a new identity accompanied by a new and clarified purpose.  We now live for Him and we find with our new name hope, purpose, and direction for life and the life to come. The LORD becomes our sufficiency come what may.

 

In Abraham’s case, birthing a child was impossible without divine intervention. It was God who did the impossible. While it is true that Abraham and Sarah had to act on the promise for it to come true, it was God who performed the miracle. 

 

God was faithful and Abraham’s faith was reestablished. Upon God’s renewed covenant (v.21), the Bible says that “on that very day” Abraham, Ishmael, and all the males in the family were circumcised as a reminder that while Abraham and Sarah played a part in the blessing upon future generations was made possible by God’s presence and purpose.

 

A Concluding and Needed Perspective

 

Our identity, and our purpose for being rests in our trust that God not only loves us but has a place for us in His divine plan.  Difficulties will come because an enemy is trying to obstruct God’s plan but do not forget, He is ‘el Shaddai! – He is sufficient.

“Christ can look on the misery of the world without a shade of sorrow for having created man. In the human heart He sees more than sin, more than misery. In His infinite wisdom and love He sees man's possibilities, the height to which he may attain. He knows that, even though human beings have abused their mercies and destroyed their God-given dignity, yet the Creator is to be glorified in their redemption.” 7T 269.3