Genesis 15: God Plays the Long Game

God makes Abram a promise big enough to outlive Abram and bold enough to quiet his fear, but Abram still asks the question most of us carry: how can I be sure? Genesis 15 gives a surprisingly honest look at faith, not as hype or denial, but as trust that grows while questions are still on the table. 

We talk through Abram’s worry about having no son, God’s stunning response under the night sky, and the line that shapes so much of Christian belief: Abram believes the Lord, and God counts it as righteousness. Then we slow down for the part that can feel confusing today, the covenant ceremony with the divided animals and the haunting imagery of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. Seen through the ancient world’s lens, it’s a breathtaking statement: God puts His own reputation on the line to guarantee His promise. 

Finally, God pulls back the curtain and shows the long game: generations ahead, hardship, deliverance, and a return at the right time. We connect that long view to the repeated pattern of God keeping covenant faithfulness again and again, even when people forget. If you need hope, reassurance, and a deeper Bible study of Genesis 15, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, what promise are you asking God to reaffirm today?

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

Why Genesis Matters To Israel

Abram Questions God About An Heir

Stars Promise And Faith Counted

The Covenant Ritual Explained

The 400-Year Prophecy And Return

Why God’s Promises Repeat

Prayer And Closing Encouragement

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Genesis chapter 15. Today's title is God Plays the Long Game. God plays the long game. Do you know when I was uh in my my teenage years, I thought I was playing the long game, right? Trying to plan out my life and plan out what I wanted to do, only to realize when I got into my 20s, I didn't know what the long game was. You know what I mean? You don't know what you don't know, right? And when I got in my 20s, then I thought I was playing the long game. I'm trying to plan out the next 10 years, this kind of stuff. And then when I got in my 30s, I thought I still don't know what I'm doing. Like, like the long game is generations, right? Like that's that's what the long game is. People used to ask me if I had a 10-year plan. And now I'm beginning to think we need to have a much longer plan than that because we need to think, what are our kids and our grandkids gonna do? Like, like that's long game. And we realize then we think about God. God really does play the long game. And today we're gonna see that. We're gonna see how God is gonna kind of pull back the curtain just a little bit and let Abram see there's a lot longer of a plan going on than he realized. And maybe that'll give us a little bit of hope today when we realize that God is thinking so much further down the road than we are. So we'll get into all that in just a moment. Make sure you get your Bibles out to Genesis chapter 15. While you're doing that, take just a moment and like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. Make sure you're commenting on the YouTube videos. I love being able to read some of the different perspectives that you have. And make sure you're also going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And as always, you can get links to all of that information at the Biblebreakdown.com. Well, if you've been with us over the past few days, we are walking through what is becoming one of my new favorite books of the Bible. I love it so much. I love all the amazing things that are there, and realizing we are not even hardly scratching the surface as what is in the book of Genesis. And one of the things that makes this so much fun is when we begin to realize that the goal of this is for us not to try to figure out how we can simply understand it from today's standards, but to get our minds all the way back to the mindset of a recently liberated Jewish person. They've been in Egyptian bondage for 400 years under this polytheistic culture. Now they are living with God. They're at the Mount Sinai, they're experiencing freedom for the first time in generations, and God is just cleaning out all of that paganistic stuff. And he's saying, no, like this group of gods did not create the heavens and the earth. I did. That was me. And he's like reordering history, and now he's reordering the history of the Jewish nation with Abram. And if you remember, Abraham was told to leave his family, and he and he kind of does, and he thinks Lot, which creates then another problem. And then in yesterday's chapter, he has to go save Lot when they get uh get taken over. And then today, God reestablishes, because notice he's been saying for a while now, I'm gonna give you a family. I'm gonna give you a son, it's gonna be awesome. Well, he doesn't have a son, and so God is going to again begin to set this promise in action. And he's gonna do this by making this promise, but then also telling Abram, kind of pulling back the curtain and going, There's a whole lot more going on here than you realize. So if you're ready, let's jump into this together. Sometime later, verse one says, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, Don't be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you and your reward will be great. But Abram replied, O sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since you have given me no children, Elizar of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir. But the Lord said to Abram, No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir. Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. That's how many descendants you will have. And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. And the Lord said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldanes to give you this land as your possession. But Abraham replied, O sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it? And the Lord told him, Bring me a three year old heifer, a three year old female goat, a three year old lamb, a ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side. He did not, however, cut the birds in half. Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away. As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. Then the Lord said to Abram, You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites did not do not yet warrant their destruction. After the sun went down and the darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking fire pot, and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River, the land now occupied by the Kenites, the Kenizites, the Ketamites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Raphites, Amorites, Canaanites, Gergeshites, and Jebusites. So what in the world just happened? Well, to summarize, God, I love this by the way, God told Abram, You are going to have a child. I promise you, you're going to have a child. And the Bible says that Abraham was like, okay, I believe you, God. And God counted him righteous. In other words, he said, I God knew Abraham meant it. And God said, Okay, we're good to go. And then he also told Abram, he said, and all this land I'm going to give them to live on. And he's like, Ah, you know, God, how do I know that? So for some reason, he had no problem believing that a supernatural miracle was going to occur, because they're Abram and Sarai are old at this point. And he's like, I got no problem believing a supernatural miracle is going to occur and you're going to give me a kid. But the land thing, that's the one he was struggling with, right? And so what happened was, and we we missed this in our modern culture, which is why we got to go back, that during the time, if you wanted to make a covenant, I promise, with someone, like I promise you, like I'm going to do this. Then what you would do is, is you would take these animals. So Abraham knew what he was asking for. He would take these animals and you would cut them in half. And then what would happen is, is both parties who are making the covenant would walk in between the halves. And what they were symbolizing is they were saying, I am making a promise with you today that I will do whatever. XYZ. If I don't do it, let what happens, what happened to these animals, let that be what happens to me. In other words, if I don't fulfill my end of the contract, kill me. Don't just kill me, murder me, mutilate me. Otherwise, that's what's going to happen. And so what God did, was I mean, and if you think about this, it'll blow your, it'll blow your mind. What God did is He said, I so promise you that what's going to happen is going to happen, that if it doesn't happen, destroy everything. And I do mean everything. God literally says, if it does not happen, I am putting my reputation as the king of the universe on the line based on this promise. So, other words, it'll all be destroyed if I don't fulfill my promise. That is a guarantee. That is amazing if you think about it. Okay. And of course, God was not, I mean, God cannot lie. Literally, if you think about it, God so can't lie that whatever he says, it becomes the truth, right? That that's just that's crazy. But God was saying that's how much you can count on this. And notice how God plays this long game. And he says, I am thinking so much further in the future than just the fact that I'm gonna give you this land right here, and that I'm gonna give you a son. We later know his name is Isaac, spoiler alert. But he says, I'm actually telling you, I'm gonna give you this land, and then after I give you your people this land, they're actually gonna leave this land for 400 years, but then I'm gonna bring them back again. Not only am I gonna give it to them, I'm gonna keep giving it to them over and over again. Fast forward, what happens? God gives them the land, they stay in the land, and they eventually have kings in that land. Eventually the Assyrians and the Babylonians overwhelm them and they have to leave the land. God brings them back again. After time again, they are overwhelmed by the Roman government, and they are scattered all over the world, but they eventually come back again, they're scattered again, and then in 1948 they're brought back again, over and over again. So God didn't just keep his covenant the one time bringing them back from Egypt. God has kept his covenant in a circular fashion over and over and over again over the past 4,000 years. That's how much you can trust what God says. Therefore, when you read God's word and he makes a promise to you and his word, that doesn't mean that he just keeps it one time. That means he keeps it over and over and over again. And even if we forget his promises, he doesn't forget. So that's the main idea today. God plays a long game. God is not interested in only keeping his promise to you today. God will continue to keep his promises until there is no more time. That's how faithful God is. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that your faithfulness is so faithful. It's so much more faithful than we can imagine. We we lose the ability to understand how faithful you are. I pray today, God, that you'll help us to remember that. Help us to remember that you are greater than we can imagine. That it's silly for us to think that you're not going to be faithful. You don't you don't have the ability to do anything else. Faithfulness is just simply who you are. And I pray that that will give us great joy and peace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Anyway, what God's Word says in Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If God can do that, there's nothing he can't do. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Genesis chapter 16.