🦁 Lent 2-1

Readings: Psalm 22:23-31; Genesis 15:1-6, 12-18; Romans 3:21-31.

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim Tribble coming to you from Sacramento, California. Today's readings are some 22 versus 23 to 31. Genesis chapter 15, verses 1 to 6 and then Genesis chapter 15, verses 12 to 18. And then the book of Romans Chapter three versus 21 to 31. 

Psalm 22. Christian, we all know the famous Psalm 23. So this is the one before. This is another song about the power, my protection and comfort of God. And it goes through those who fear the Lord. Praise Him. Well, from you comes my praise and great congregation. My vows are performed before those who fear him. And it goes on about the afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the Lord in their hearts live forever. 

Posterity shall serve Him. It shall be told of the Lord of the coming generations, that they shall come and proclaim His righteousness to the people yet unborn. This is the continuity, the continuation of God's love from generation to generation to generation. 

Aaron To readings from Genesis today. This is the beginning of what is known as the Abrahamic Covenant. This is the formation and foundation of the Jewish faith of the nation of Israel. This is where God makes a covenant with Abraham. So his name is not Abraham yet it's Abraham originally because the there's no covenant yet and in this. So Abraham's going, I don't have heirs. So Abraham was married to Sarah and they had no children. At this time, they're saying Abe Abraham was running around 100 years old and have no children. The heir of my house is this guy Eliezer of Damascus, and I have no offspring or a member of my household will be heir. But the Lord said, this man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And this is where God demonstrates his power. And there's a whole nother story about Sarah. But this is the story where God demonstrates his power because Sarah has a child. 

So the word Lord goes out and we have this line where they look. There's obviously the night sky because they're seeing the stars, is look at the stars, How many are of the year? This will be the number of your offspring. And you know, in we try counting stars at night, a lot of them we don't even know with all the telescopes and everything we've got out there now, we still don't know how many stars there are in the sky. 

And then we jump down to from verse six to verse 12 and this is where they held the  doll, the deep sleep and the dreadful darkness fell upon them. And then the war told Abraham, this is where he talks about. So they be sojourners. So this is where they can be wandering in the land that is not theirs. And they will be servants. They'll will be afflicted for 400 years. So again, going back and look at the history of the Jewish faith of the nation of Israel, know they were taking over this war. Egypt at this time would probably be what they're talking about. 

And they were enslaved in Egypt. And God says, you know, this is going to happen, but I'm also going to bring judgment on the nations that they serve and they shall come out with great possessions. You said even though God's name those is going to happen, it's going to have a very good end to it. And that was when they made the covenant. 

And I invite you to look up a covenant search for that. There's some very specific things in here that cause the covenant. And so the gods come. Abraham, you had an exchange of weapons. This is where God told Abraham not to be afraid. He himself was a shield to him. That's from Genesis 15 one. They have an exchange of cloaks also in Genesis 15 one, the blood body, including illnesses, the animal sacrifice, exchanging the blessings and curses, the memorial, the memorial meal and the exchange of names. This last one is one I want to talk about. This is where when they do the covenant, God says, Now your name is Abraham. So God added his name, part of his name on the. 

Then we move on to Paul's book, to the Romans, The Church in Rome. Chapter 321 to 31. This is titled The Righteousness of Righteousness of God through Faith. So context, again, whenever we're talking about Paul and Paul talks about the law. Okay, So we had Paul and Peter were considered the two founders of the Christian faith, Saint Paul Saint views with Jesus. Then the two first big guys were Peter and Paul. Peter, again, just a quick review. Peter was this is a Jewish thing and this was just another faction of the Jewish faith. It was actually called though way. We were not known as Christians at that time. It was called Do or Followers of the Way. All right. Paul Although Paul was also a Jew and we had the Saul to Paul moment. Saul was one of the Pharisees held the cloaks when they stoned Stephen and he was actively persecuted in the followers of the way until this road to Damascus when he was who converted from Saul to Paul and Jesus came down, he saw the light and all that. Paul's contention is God is for everyone. So we come down here and we look at verse 29 or His God, the God of Jews only is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. 

So there was this argument discussion called the first schism of faith were Peter saying to be a follower of the way you had to be a Jew already and you had to keep and follow the covenants and tenants of the Jewish faith. That's the circumcision, kosher eating, you know, all that stuff. It was just they were followers that they added some extra things in there believing that Jesus had come and was the Son of God and was the Messiah that had been foretold in Jewish prophecy. 

Paul's life, No God's for everyone. And that's how someone like myself can be a Christian, because I have no zero zero Jewish history. Do you know that DNA testing done? I have no Jewish trait, you know, blood traits. There is actually a Jewish name, by the way. I don't have any of that. So I am I am a Gentile, but I am just as much a follower of Christ because Paul and his whole what his world was, hey, everyone can be saved. And no, you don't have to follow the tenets of Jewish law. So when they know, when they're talking about the law, they're talking about the Jewish law where you had to be circumcised and kosher eating and all that stuff, you say, No, no, we're not overthrowing the law. We uphold the law. But we you don't have to be a Jew to follow the way God love and God's grace and God's forgiveness is for everyone. So as we go on today, you are on about today. Think about we're all one under God. We are all the same to God. God loves us. God is forgiveness for all our sins. When we come to Him and ask for forgiveness. And we will be in his ever loving arms with his power and his protection around us. Amen.