Scripture reading: Philippians 3:17-4:1.

Sermon text: Genesis 15.

“Patience. I need it, Lord, and I need it now!”

How many of us have prayed this prayer at some time in our lives? I often find that I need patience the most when I have no time to wait for it. Impatience has cost most of us far more than we’ll ever admit. Impatience has ruined lives, broken relationships, and destroyed nations. Most of us have tried to rush ahead into something only to find ourselves terribly unprepared. Then, in a rush of despair, we pray for God to help us out of the catastrophe we’ve brought upon ourselves.

We’re not alone, and we’re not the first to realize our need for patience, and we’re not the first to pray for it. In today’s sermon passage, we find the first recorded instance of someone praying for patience in Scripture.

Abram (better known by the name God gave him later, “Abraham”) had followed God’s call to leave Ur — one of the greatest cities on  earth at that time — and travel to Canaan, a land that scarcely compared in culture and sophistication. Abram obeyed the call, packing his family and moving to a new land. God had also promised the childless Abram that his descendants would inherit the land.

The passage today demonstrates Abram’s impatience with God’s timing. In spite of God’s promise, Abram expressed his impatience and wondered whether he had misunderstood the promise. Abram needed to learn that what God had promised, God would deliver.

Genesis 15 opens with Abram receiving a vision from God: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” In this vision, God both promised to serve as Abram’s protection (his “shield”) and to reward his faithfulness to God’s call to Canaan.

Abram, however, expressed his doubts. “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Since Abram had journeyed to Canaan, he and his wife Sarai (better known as “Sarah”) remained childless. In keeping with the laws and traditions of his time, Abram had named his chief servant, Eliezer, as his heir. Although Abram had trusted God enough to obey His call to Canaan, Abram now wondered how God would answer His promise to bless the world through his descendants.

God reassured Abram: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” Abram may have though he misunderstood God’s original promise, but God had meant what He said. Furthermore, God had promised Abram that he would father a great nation. God now reassured Abram He would fulfill this promise as well. “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. So shall your offspring be.”

Abram then accepted God’s words: “he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.” Abram demonstrated his faith in God; God accepted his faith, considering his faith as a sign of belief.

However, God went further. God then reiterated His promise of the land to Abram: “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” Not only would God honor His promise of descendants to Abram, but He would also give the land of Canaan to Abram’s descendants.

Still, Abram wondered how this would happen. You can better understand Abram’s concern by reading Genesis 14, where Abram was forced to fight the armies of 4 separate nations to rescue Lot, his nephew, who had found himself caught in a war involving a total of 9 kings. As the highway between 3 continents, Canaan sits in one of the most contested regions in the world. Even in Abram’s time, empires fought over Canaan. Abram didn’t know how God could keep the major powers from destroying his descendants in their desire to control this land.

God used a means to insure Abram that he would understand. The ceremony described in Genesis 15 resembles an ancient covenant treaty ritual introduced by the Hittites, one of the major empires that would later hold Canaan. In Abram’s time, Hittites lived in Canaan (cf. Genesis 23), but they would later build an empire that would include much of ancient Mesopotamia and fight Egypt for Canaan itself.

As described, the animals sacrificed for the ritual were cut in half, with the halves placed on either side of a pathway. The parties entering the treaty would walk between the halves. The vassal party would promise to obey the sovereign, while the sovereign would promise to keep the promises in the covenant (including the promises of punishment if the vassal reneged on the covenant).

Abram divided the pieces of the animals and waited until nightfall. After Abram fell asleep, he received a vision of the future, but not what he had expected.

God revealed that Abram’s descendants would suffer time in a foreign land: “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.” Notice that while God’s statement promised descendants to Abram, it also promised misery to those descendants.

However, God also promised that He would deliver Abram’s descendants. “But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.” The suffering of the people would result in great reward.

Abram himself would die in peace: “As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.” Then, his descendants would “come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” God would deliver Abram’s descendants, but He would first give the Amorites in Canaan another 400 years to repent of their sins and turn from their wickedness.

Then, in a physical sign to comfort Abram, “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” God gave Abram a sign that He would keep the promise. As for the promise, God formalized it in a covenant: “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” God promised all of Canaan to Abram’s descendants. Abram believed that, in spite of the military prowess of these people, God would give their lands to his descendants.

This passage tells us a great deal about issues still relevant to us today: Who is God? Can we trust Him? Can we believe He will protect His people? Will God keep the promises He has made to us?

I believe this passage also challenges us to look at ourselves.

I’ve come to realize that most of our doubts about God reveal more about us than about Him. When we look at Abram’s life, we see numerous signs that Abram never overcame his impatience with God. What about us?

We must understand that God does not operate on our timing. God revealed the future to Abram; Abram awoke the next morning aware that, over 400 years after his death, his descendants would finally inherit the land as God had promised.

As the eternal God, God’s sense of timing includes all of time itself. In a way we cannot understand, God knows the future and directs the affairs of humanity. God causes everything to happen just when it will accomplish His purposes. Lest you doubt God’s promises, remember that He waited nearly 1,900 years after this covenant to send His Son, Jesus, to fulfill His promise to Abram to bless all the world through his descendants. St. Paul used a word that applies here: “kairos,” which in the Greek means “decisive moment.”

This applies to many issues today. I hear people prophesying about Jesus’ return; others doubt He will ever return. I can tell you exactly when Jesus will return: When God thinks it’s time for Him to return.

We also need to understand another key point. When God calls people to obey Him, He does not give us the full story. For one thing, we couldn’t handle the whole plan of God, no matter if we try. God called Abram to leave Ur, go to Canaan, and bless all nations through his obedience. God didn’t tell Abram how many servants to take, what route to take, or even if he would have to fight for what he found there. We, too, must believe God will honor His promises to us and obey Him when He calls us.

We often find ourselves wondering whether or not God will speak to us. When we sense God convicting us of our sins and calling us to confess Jesus, His Son, as Lord, we often feel great elation when we obey His call. Then, we hope the feeling will stay with us. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Emotions never stay high forever. We must not doubt our salvation when — not if — the feelings flee us.

Lest you think that God will exempt you from this, I’d remind you of Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. On His final night of life before His crucifixion. Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, learned of the despair that happens when it seems God has abandoned us. In His final moments, Jesus lost all sense of the future as He wondered if, perhaps, He could avoid crucifixion and death. In the end, Jesus prayed as we have prayed in this service today: “Thy will be done.”

Many people remember Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who began the Sisters of Charity to serve the poor in Calcutta. After her death, her letters revealed that after sensing God’s call to serve the poor, Mother Teresa experienced a period lasting over 50 years where she never again sensed the presence of God. Some people saw this as a sign of unbelief; others, especially atheists, proclaimed Mother Teresa’s experience proved God’s nonexistence.

However, I see this as most others who have experienced, in some way, what St. John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul,” the times in our lives when God withdraws the pleasures once we knew in our spiritual lives to prepare us for greater things and a deeper sense of His presence.

In those times when we feel despair, we need to remember that our eternal God is also our eternal Father. As our Father, God does what is best for us. God’s plan for you does not include merely the events of this life; God’s plan for you extends all the way into eternity itself.

As our Father, God sent His Son, Jesus, to suffer for us and die to give us victory over sin and death. God delivered Abram’s descendants from Egypt in the Exodus. God delivered us from sin and death in the resurrection of Jesus. Every time we face doubt that God will work in our lives, we must remember that He has already done so in the death and resurrection of His Son.

Perhaps you’re waiting on God to answer a prayer; maybe you’re waiting for Him to deliver you in some way from something in your life. God waited years to reveal the future to Abram. Patience comes only to those who trust God and wait for Him to act in the time best for us. Christian, hold fast. The Eternal God, your Faithful Father, will act in His plan to bring you to a glorious eternity.