Thursday Morning Bible Study - Sept 30th 2021

[Music] good morning so we have some special guests um shane and connor and they're just gonna sit up here with grammy um because uh shame boy has a little bit of a cough and i don't want to put them in class and i will just take them right back home because they're with me for a few days so it's all good so they're gonna be super good but we're just we're just gonna worship oh let's pray lord you're so so good we are you are so good lord the way you care for us lord every detail of our lives you orchestrate lord we have no no fear no need to worry lord i thank you oh for the many ways that you bless us lord unexpected blessings oh jesus thank you oh lord you're so holy you're so holy lord may our praises rise before you like a sweet fragrant offering acceptable to you lord thank you jesus hallelujah holy holy holy holy holy lord [Music] holy [Music] oh [Music] as he [Music] falling down before thee [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] my [Music] there is [Music] holy [Music] shall praise [Music] oh [Music] god [Music] amen and amen thank you lord that you are you were you are to come thank you jesus you can be seated if you want to stay standing kneel be on your face if you want to dance i'll have you go do it in the back sometimes you just got it [Music] i know that you are god in the secret of your presence [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is no one else for jesus crucified to set me free there is jesus crucified to set me free [Music] is [Music] you give me peace [Music] this is [Music] jesus crucified to set me free there is [Applause] [Music] set me free [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] there is [Music] to set me free [Music] free [Music] guys nothing changes who god is right nothing takes him by surprise he is still worthy of all things [Music] i've [Music] you're [Music] me [Music] for your [Music] you're worthy [Music] [Music] you deserve the glory day and night night and days day and night night and days to rise [Music] you're worthy [Music] please [Music] you destroyed [Music] given that this week's name of god was el shaddai we just had to do it [Music] you're still we will praise [Music] him [Music] and by your mind you set your children free [Music] you should die [Music] through the years you made it clear that the time of christ was near though the people couldn't see what messiah [Music] they just would not understand the most [Music] you shall die [Music] i shall die [Music] by the power of the name [Music] we will praise him [Music] our el shaddai our lord almighty great and powerful are you and no nothing is like you no one beside you you are most high almighty god thank you thank you lord for the gift of worship thank you jesus for this sweet blessing o lord i pray that you would speak to us lord that we would be changed lord we would grow deeper with you lord i pray that we would depend on you for everything every breath we know nothing is beyond you you are more than able to accomplish that which concerns us and we thank you for who you are and that you never change and you are everlasting all-powerful almighty all-knowing god in jesus name amen thank you any day now that's what i like being with the little ones good morning ladies okay what'd we study last week what name yes and what does it mean yeah okay we just sang the song that wasn't too hard to know from that brother yeah okay um let me pray good morning lord thank you for the women here thank you for the women who are watching thank you for our worship team father who brings us into your presence thank you for this time help me communicate clearly father on covenant in your name amen okay so the suggested memory verse what did anybody do the memory is anybody paying attention to the memory verses okay so the suggested memory verse this week was from genesis chapter 17 verse one i am god almighty walk before me and be blameless it's pretty easy you guys okay it is on your lesson you know down at the bottom kind of on one or two or the three of the pages so okay so this was the first mention of el shaddai i am god almighty the word blameless in hebrew is tamim t-a-m-a-m and that means complete or sound so i think in in your notes i put um whole um whole complete so he is complete he's blameless before the god before the lord but i love the king james version um that says i am almighty god walk before me and be thou perfect so we know that um as we are before the lord and righteous before him because of jesus christ we are perfect which is pretty cool okay so this week we looked at genesis chapters 12 chapters 15 and chapter 17. we discovered in these three chapters that god promised some things to abram um in genesis 12 he made some specific promises to him what he would give him then in genesis 15 god um reiterated those promises to abram and cut or made covenant with him in genesis 17 god instituted the covenant of circumcision aren't you glad to be a woman this past week the lord let me know that um i needed to focus on genesis chapter 15 um and teach on the covenant that god set up with abram so that's going to be our focus for the next few minutes so what i'd like for you to do is open your bibles to genesis chapter 15 please okay so i'm going to go through kind of like i did last week a few verses at a time maybe one or two a chunk at a time in verse one and i'm just going to kind of explain just go into a little bit more detail on on those on that chapter so in verse one after these things after these things verse one the word of the lord came to abram in a vision saying do not fear abram i am a shield to you your reward shall be very great so you know back then well actually today too the word of the lord came to the people in the bible in many different ways he would appear in dreams and visions he may there may be a voice as he um as as he calls out ministry of angels ministry of prophet or a preacher and here we see that the lord came to abram in a vision and it says after these things so that should bear the question what things what things is god talking about after these things well what are these things in verse one i'm so glad you asked so um why would the lord come to abram after these things what's the importance of that so if you go to the previous chapter in chapter 14 you could see that abram had just defeated a much larger army and made up that was made up of a partnership of four kings or kingdoms and so abram had a reason to be afraid and the lord tells them not to fear that he's a shield about him abram had expected attack or he could expect an attack of retribution or retaliation and yet the lord knew abram's heart and spoke to him exactly where he knew abram needed to be ministered to that he the lord is his shield and we talked about that last week from psalm 91 he is our shield and our rampart okay so verses four and five then behold the word of the lord came to him saying this man shall not be your heir it's like what man this man shall not be your heir oh i forgot verses two and three that might help huh sorry guys i turned my page too quickly abram said verses two and three abram said oh lord god what will you give me since i am childless okay so he's waiting for this child that god had told him he would have and the heir of my house is eliezer of damascus and abram said since you've given no offspring to me one born in my house is my heir you know we see abraham lamenting before the lord that he's still without a son he's still without an heir which god had promised him in chapter 12. if abram didn't have an heir then eleazar who was born in his household as a um as a servant um he would inherit all of abram's possessions so this is the question why this is why abram's asking that question he's thinking i'm getting old what's going on here so then to verses 4 and 5 behold the word of the lord came to him saying this man will not be your heir but one who will come forth from your own body he shall be your heir and he took him outside and he said now look toward the heavens and count the stars if you are even able to count them and god said to him so shall your descendants be another promise god's promise here was that one shall come forth from your body your loins and he will be your heir here he's telling him that an actual flood and flood and bless an actual flesh and blood descended would inherit the promise from god you know i i just see the kindness of god in verse five he's so kind to him god tells abraham to look toward the heaven he he takes him out and gives him a visual or a word picture right he says go out let's look at the stars let's go out and look up abram's like whoa you know you can just imagine cindy let's go out to this let's go out here and i'm going to tell you what you're going to get these are your descendants it's going to be more than the stars if you can count them or they're like the stars god knew that abram needed an illustration abram needed a reminder of all that el-shaddai was going to do for him forgive him probably my favorite verse in the whole study we've done is verse six then he abram believed in the lord and he god reckoned it to him as righteousness when abram put his trust in god specifically in god's promise to him you know the descendants from abram were going to be the was going to be the messiah so jesus was coming through his seed god credited this belief to abram's account as righteousness you know none of us can be good enough to accomplish perfect righteousness as we know who those of us who are christ followers we must have god's righteousness accounted to us by doing just what abram did he believed in the lord he believed god you know this is one of the clearest expressions in the bible of the truth of salvation by grace through faith so he's saved through his faith salvation by grace according to some commentaries this is the first time that the words believe and righteousness are used in the bible i didn't have time to look that up i just want to make sure but i'm going to believe them so um the word righteousness has some has become a kind of a religious cliche for um for some but it has lots in its meaning it's a layman's definition of righteousness is simply a right standing with god righteousness is the condition of being in right relationship with the lord jesus christ and this can only happen through a total faith and total dependence upon jesus okay so i have a little commercial break a little time out right here i'm gonna go the bathroom i'm just kidding in january connie and sierra are going to be going teaching us through the the book of romans and i hope that each of you as excited as i am to do that book it is a fabulous study i've done it probably three different times and every time i look at that book there's something new that pops out one of the main themes throughout the book of romans is righteousness and it's no coincidence that god reminded me of that when i was i was studying this i'm going guy isn't that in romans yes and hebrews so one of the main themes having a right relationship with the lord jesus christ and how we can do it so that's starting in january okay back to genesis 15 verses 7 and 8 and he said to him god said to abram i am the lord who brought you out of ur of the chaldeans to give you the land to possess it he said oh lord god how may i know that i'm going to possess it once again he's like how do i know what are you sure tell me here we read that el shaddai is restating his promise that he gave him in chapter 12. so he's reiterating it how many years later 25 or 50 i can't remember how many years it's been abram's trust is starting to waver mine would too you're waiting you're waiting he's getting old i don't i think he's 75 at this time i think when he has his his when he when sarah gets pregnant i think they're like in their 90s we were laughing about that in leaders we have a perfect word picture of who's 90 there's someone here that's over 90. okay abram is trust is abram's trust is starting to waver abram's almost asking god for proof of the promise he's doubting it so like us charles spurgeon says of this past of this passage faith is often marred by a measure of unbelief or if not quite unbelief there is a desire to have some token or some sign beyond the promise of god isn't that what we want i want a sign i want you to tell me i can't just believe that i don't believe it's going to happen i'm going to die first i'm never going to have that wham wow right okay so verses 9-11 so god said to him okay abraham here we go bring me a three-year-old heifer and a three-year-old female goat and a three-year-old ram i wonder why they had to be three huh oh i don't know and a turtle dove and a young purge a lung persian a young pigeon so he brought all these to god so he's bringing them to god and abram cuts them in two and laid each half opposite of the other but he did not cut the birds the birds of prey began to come down upon the carcasses so we know there's some time that went on here so he's cut them as god told him to there's some time where's god at so he's just kind of waiting and those birds of prayer trying to kind of eat those birds so he has to shoo him away you know in abraham's day covenants were sometimes agreed to by preparing a sacrifice not all covenants were sacked by a sac not all covenants were not all covenants use the sacrifice here they're the covenant meant that they were cutting it in two pieces and halfing it exactly so exactly they would have it they would lay the pieces on the ground then those making the covenant had to pass between the divided carcasses it's so gross if you think about it he's got a goat and what was it in the round they're bloody they're so they're gonna walk through this path this symbolized obviously the seriousness of their intentions to keep the covenant because the divided carcass represented what would happen to them if they didn't obey that oath so they could look at those carcasses and go oh that's what's going to happen to me if i don't keep my covenant my contract with you this was not the only way covenant was agreed to though only the more serious covenants so now abram knows this is going to be a ser this is a serious covenant that's happening he knows that because he knows what's going on with covenant they were literally pledging their life so abram's sitting there knowing that he's going to be pledging his life then after they passed through those carcasses the people who were making covenant or they call it cutting covenant um the carcass would be burned and that would be a symbol of their acceptance of the covenant that they just cut with one another okay kind of interesting okay so what's interesting here is who we we see through the um through the story that there was only one person who walked through this covenant he's god is the only one that passed through this covenant by god doing this this shows god's seriousness to meet the requirement of covenant to abram it also shows that god was not holding either abraham abram or his descendants to the same stringent requirement to the covenant that god held okay this promise therefore would be met by god's grace and not by man's works sound familiar nobody will meet the terms of the covenant on the basis of works but by grace it's a beautiful picture of what's to come or what we are doing okay so verses 12 through 16. now when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon abram and behold terror and great darkness fell upon him god said to abram know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years but i will also judge the nation whom they will serve and afterward they will come out with many possessions as for you you shall go to your fathers in peace you will be buried at a good age then in the fourth generation they will return here for the inequity of the amorite is not yet complete as evening came god had not yet appeared to walk through the animal parts with abram and seal the covenant so he's he has this little dream or this little deep sleep before god walks through that instead god caused a deep sleep to pull upon abram apparently at least part of what followed came to abram in his dream while he was under the deep sleep specifically god told abram of the slavery and hardship that was going to happen to them that israel would endure in egypt so there's a prophecy that god's telling is going to happen though the land was given to abram as covenant descendants there would be this long period where they lived outside the land and in an affliction yet after four generations they would return and come with great possessions so here we have the 400 years that they went through their their affliction with egypt the egyptians so here to abram knows that's going to happen 400 years so he knows his is that going to happen after i die is that going to happen with me that's a long time um verses 17 to 21 it came about when the sun had set that it was very dark and behold there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch anybody have a question about what a smoking oven was in leaders we had a lot of discussion about that okay i know what does it mean exactly and a flaming torch which passed through these pieces on that day the lord made a covenant with abraham saying abram saying to your descendants i have given this land from the river of egypt as far as the great river the river euphrates and all those ites i probably read this about six times and i'm like i just can't say them all they're just too weird i can say the hittites but that's about it so as abraham was either asleep or perhaps he was still groggy he was just kind of half up half not maybe from the deep sleep he saw god do an amazing thing he saw god pass through the animals all by himself i cannot even imagine what abraham must have been going through as he watched that the glory of the lord walking through those um through those carcasses remember making a covenant in abram's time was typically with two people so this is the first time that abram's seeing it done unilaterally by one by the he sees the oven and the torch and it's going through the animals so verse verse 17 states there appeared to be a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed through the pieces so the representation of the oven is god god god represented by the smoking oven and the burning and the burning torch passed through the animal parts by himself as abram watched you know we see that um throughout scripture i gave your leaders some um some notes on covenant and many times we see god re represented by um thunder light by lightning by by a torch as a shekinah glory by light and so here we have another representation of um of god the smoking oven and the flaming torch there's god walking through it so god showed that this was a unilateral covenant abram never signed the covenant he never signed the contract he wasn't part of it it was god covenanting with abram therefore the certainty of the covenant god made with abram is based on who god is and not on who abraham was or what he would do this covenant couldn't fail because god cannot fail and then in verse 18 he says i've given this land from the river of egypt to the great river the river euphrates and by quoting this specific um place on the map god made it clear that this was not a figurative spiritual thing that this was exactly where the israeli israelites would inherit the land they would inherit real land okay so what's the point of covenant to me today why go into it it's kind of boring it's kind of gross i'm so glad you asked so we don't talk a lot about covenants today but we really should covenants are one of the most important themes in the bible because they act as the skeletons or the skeleton upon which the entire redemptive story weaves its way through the bible they're like the backbone of the bible from genesis on god enters into one formal relationship after another through covenant he uses various humans in order to push that narrative forward until it reaches its climax in the new covenant with jesus christ so covenant throughout the old testament is showing us the new covenant in christ thus to tell the story of god redeeming his people through jesus is to tell the story of god's covenantal relationship with his people that's why it's important the covenants pointed towards and were fulfilled in jesus christ the new testament presents jesus as the offspring of abram abraham who trusted his father even to the point of death and so abram became a blessing to all the nations and so is christ he is the obedient israelite who perfectly kept fulfilled and thus tran thus transcended the law of god abraham and jesus abraham wasn't perfect so we had to have a perfect one he is the royal son of david jesus is who inaugurated god's kingdom in his life death and resurrection and now sits at god's right hand as a shepherd king one day he's coming back for his followers there are so many parallels in the old testament of who jesus is covenant is one of them abraham um david noah jesus perfectly succeeded at every point that humans failed this makes him jesus christ the guarantor and the mediator of the new and better covenant so now every person from every nation who are christ followers are part of god's covenant family and can experience the rich blessings of the new covenant that's why covenant's so important and it's all possible because of him the perfect covenant keeper let's pray thank you father for covenant oh lord it is so rich you god thank you for this lesson thank you for nudging me to teach it i pray lord that we would just continue to want to know more about you from the old testament all the way through unto revelation god be with us as we go to our groups time lord and just allow us to have a sweet time of fellowship in jesus name amen thanks ladies [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Chapel East Anaheim

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Length: 43min 5sec (2585 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021