God’s Promises & Our Response

Part 2Pastor Brent Lokker November 22, 2014

God’s Covenant with Abraham

• “I shall make you a great nation. I shall bless you and make your name famous. You are to be a blessing!” (Genesis 12:2)

• (11 years later) “I am your shield and shall give you a very great reward…Your heir shall be the issue of your own body… Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so will your descendants be.” (Genesis 15:1,4,5)

• (13 years later) “I am El Shaddai (the God who mightily nourishes, satisfies, protects and supplies His people). Live in my presence, be perfect (Tahmeem) and I shall grant a covenant between myself and you, and make you very numerous…Your name is to be Abraham, for I am making you father of many nations…and your descendants shall be kings. And I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you and your descendants after you, generation after generation, as a covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” (Genesis 17:1,2, 5-7)

Bill Johnson• “I’ve got this dream

of every person being settled in their heart with who they are in God, their place in society, and their place of influence. Literally being successful in the assignment.”

Abraham entered into what God was doing for him and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on His own. !

That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God’s decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. Romans 4:2,13 in The Message Bible

We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. !

When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. !

Romans 4:16,18 in The Message Bible

So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham’s family, and you will be given what God has promised. Galatians 3:29 (CEV)

And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. Romans 4:23-25 (NLT)

• I will be your God who cares for you in every way! • I choose you! • I’m in this for your best—always! • I’ve made things right between us and I will never

cut you off or change my mind! • I know your value—your infinite worth to me!