The God Who Keeps His Promises

Introduction: The Problem of a Broken World

We're starting in Genesis chapter 12 this morning, looking at The God Who Keeps His Promises.

Here's the big picture background. In chapters 1–2 of Genesis, we get the outline of utopia — no wars, no fighting, no moodiness, never too hot or too cold, just perfect human relationships. Creation itself was wonderful: no pain, no sorrow, no disaster, no despair, only joy.

Then come eight chapters — Genesis 3 to 11 — cataloguing the consequences of human self-sufficiency. Adam and Eve turn their backs on God: "It's my life, bud. I'll run it fine. You just stay in your box." Blessing gives way to curse, life gives way to death. Cain murders his brother Abel. Violence fills the earth. God judges humanity through the flood, sparing only Noah — and even Noah fails again. Finally, at the Tower of Babel, humanity decides that through technology and engineering it can "make a name for itself."

The question remains for all of us today, regardless of faith or background: how do you fix a broken world? Is there one of us who wouldn't admit there's a deep brokenness in humanity? Better education, better politics, better technology — to some extent, yes. But for thousands of years we've hoped that if we could just solve the problems, we might build the world we've always wanted.

Genesis 12 is God's answer. After eight chapters of human voices dominating, planning, building, rebelling, and failing — God speaks. This is the sea change of human history.

1. God Promises

"The Lord had said to Abram..."

Look closely at those words. It's a mundane exchange on the surface — one voice speaking, another listening. But notice where the initiative lies: before Abram believes, before Abram obeys, before Abram takes a single step, God speaks. Later in Scripture we learn Abram's family was pagan — they didn't know the God of the Bible at all. Abram wasn't searching for God.　　

This says two things for us today:

• If you have come to faith in Christ, don't think you were somehow "up to it" or looking out for God. He came for you — even if you were three years old. It's grace.
• If you don't yet believe, take note: if God comes after people, then listen to his voice. Take an hour a week to stop and ask, Who am I? How does my world get fixed? The answer begins with listening to God speak.

Notice the repeated refrain in verses 1–3 — five times God says, "I will." Christian faith has always begun with God's promises, not ours. Three great promises stand out:

A Nation

"I will make you into a great nation."

Abram was 75; his wife was 65 and unable to have children. This promise is, on the face of it, nonsense — which is exactly the point. It is never by human ability. It's supernatural. That's the difference between mere human reason and divine revelation: we need someone bigger than us to tell us the big picture of our lives.

A Place

"Go... to the land I will show you."

No map. No satnav. No explanation of where he's going — just a promise and a command: get going, take the next step, I'm with you. Abram's faith was a trusting faith — when God spoke, he moved, without knowing what was coming down the road.

A Blessing

In our culture, "bless you" is what you say after a sneeze — a weak, meaningless little word. But biblical blessing is about depth: purpose, meaning, hope, a future, a better world. After eight chapters of curse, despair, murder, and destruction, blessing arrives — and it reaches to all peoples on earth (v.3).

When God speaks to Abram, it amounts to this: "You and your wife are going to be the beginning of an incredible nation for the whole world, lasting for eternity. Go to the land I will show you — just go, I'm in charge, you can trust me. And it's going to be fantastic — my job is blessing, because I love you."

2. Abraham Believes

"So Abram went, as the Lord had told him." (v.4)

This is uncomplicated, and that's the point. Every person in this room is either "in" or "out" — there's no fence to sit on. Abram went with no recorded hesitation, no negotiation, no request for further information. He trusted the God who had spoken.

Abram didn't know where he was going, but he rested in who had called him. It cost him everything — he travelled roughly 500 miles, leaving his country, his language, his culture, and everything familiar, exchanging what he could see for a promise he couldn't. This passage is sometimes called the proto-gospel — because it shows us what it looks like to say, "Yes. I'm in."

Abraham was just a man, just like us. God spoke, and though Abram had no guarantee it would come about, he went.

3. Abraham Worships and Waits

Abram travels hundreds of miles and finally reaches the promised land — only to discover:

"At that time the Canaanites were in the land." (v.6)

Imagine the shock: "I heard him wrong. This land is run by a bunch of rascals who will kill me as soon as look at me. I must have got the directions wrong." But it wasn't a mistake.

God had promised the land; Abram obeyed; yet the Canaanites possessed it. And the Lord offers no explanation — he simply reappears and repeats the promise:

"To your offspring I will give this land." (v.7)

No fresh justification, no timeline. It would be 25 years before the child was born, and 700 years before the land was actually possessed under Joshua. Abram didn't need to know the details — he needed to know the promise, restated. That's exactly why we come to church, why we say the creed, why we sing, why we pray: the axiomatic promises of the Bible dissipate like mist in the busyness of everyday life, and on the seventh day we stop to recalibrate.

In response, Abram does two things: he builds altars, and he pitches his tent.

• The altar says: God is my treasure. Whatever comes my way, I worship God. Nothing had yet been fulfilled before his eyes, yet he worshipped.
• The tent says: This world isn't my home. I'm a traveller, a foreigner, on the move. As C.S. Lewis put it, the term will end, and I'm going home.

If you're unsure what you believe this morning, here's a small litmus test: is there something deep inside you that says, "This isn't it. There's more"? That's the itch, the stone in the shoe, that says you belong somewhere else.

Reading Abraham Through Hebrews

Hebrews 11:8–11 gives us the best commentary on this story, written to Jewish Christians ready to give up on their faith:

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." (Heb 11:8)

You don't know what's coming tomorrow, when you'll die, what anguish or joy you'll face. But trust God — because without him, where else would you put your hope?

"By faith Abraham made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country... for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." (Heb 11:9–10)

Even as Abram pitched his tent each night, something in him sensed this vision was greater than he could picture — a nation, a people, a blessing beyond imagining.

"And Sarah herself was enabled to bear children... because she considered him faithful who had made the promise." (Heb 11:11)

They were just people. And the same Spirit of God that spoke to them says to us: "I've got you. Walk with me — I am surely walking with you every step of the way, and I always will."

From Abraham to Christ

All of the Old Testament flows from here. A thousand years after Abraham, King David rules over Israel, and for a moment it looks like the nation, the place, and the blessing have all arrived — money, power, dominance in the ancient Near East. Then it crashes. Even the greatest king of the greatest nation cannot bear the weight of God's people, place, and blessing in full.

A thousand years after David, God himself, in human form, shows up. Jesus Christ smashes the curse. He never fails, never puts God in his pocket. He goes to the cross and dies for every one of us who has tried to keep God boxed away. In beating death, he begins the new creation — a people who will live forever, and a kingdom that has already come.

The people and the place, in Christ, are you — if you follow him. You can walk out of here saying, "I've been found. I know who I am, where home is, and who my family is. I'm blessed."

The only thing that hasn't yet happened is that Christ has not come back to finally fix the world, to judge it, and to rule it forever with his people. And we yearn for that day.

Closing Application

If you are a Christian this morning: build your altars. Say, I worship God. Pitch your tent — you are a stranger here, on your way home. Believe it.

If you're not sure that you believe, you're invited to do what Abram did in light of Jesus Christ: say, "Yes, I'm coming. I'm in." The curse is broken. God has spoken. The cross proves God keeps his promises. The empty tomb guarantees that every promise will come to pass.

So trust him. Take the next step. Keep worshipping this week while you wait, and keep walking by faith — until faith becomes sight.