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Week of March 15, 2026

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New City Church Olathe

Abraham & Sarah – A Series In Genesis – Genesis 15-16

March 15, 2026

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Genesis 15

Abraham & Sarah – A Series In Genesis – Genesis 15-16

March 15, 2026 / Jonathan Bissig / Genesis 15 / New City Church Olathe

GENESIS – Abram & Sari Week 3 – When a Promise Meets Reality

Genesis 15–16 (CSB)

Genesis 15:1–6 (CSB)

¹“After these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.”

²But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.”

⁴Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” ⁵He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”

⁶Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:17–18 (CSB)

¹⁷ “When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘I give this land to your offspring.’”

Genesis 16:1–4 (CSB)

¹ “Abram’s wife Sarai had not borne any children for him, but she owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar. ² Sarai said to Abram, ‘Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.’ And Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

³So Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife for him. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan ten years.

⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her.”

Today, I want to talk to you about what happens when a Promise Meets Reality

Intro:

There is a moment
In almost every promise,
Where reality starts to feel heavier than hope.
You start with confidence.
You feel certain
God is leading you somewhere.
You believe the promise.
But then time passes.
And the promise doesn’t seem to move.
The door stays closed.
The prayers feel unanswered.
The timeline stretches longer than you expected.
And suddenly
You begin asking the question
That many believers
Are often afraid to say out loud.
Did I misunderstand God?
Or maybe
A different question begins to creep in.
Do I need to help God out?
You start to convince yourself:

Maybe I need to fix this.

Maybe I need to try to open the door on my own…just give it a little nudge

Maybe I need to help the promise along and make it happen.

If you have ever felt that tension,
Then you understand exactly
Where Abram and Sarai find themselves in Genesis 15 and 16.
God has promised Abram something extraordinary.
A son.
A family.
A nation.
A blessing that would reach the whole world.
But years have passed.
And the promise still hasn’t happened.
Genesis 15 and 16 show us
What happens when a promise meets reality.
And what we discover
Is that faith
Must learn to rest in God’s covenant grace
Rather than human strength.

But before we move forward,
Let’s keep reminding ourselves of something important.
Moses, the writer of Genesis,
Is writing to the people of Israel
After they have left Egypt.
They are still wandering in the wilderness.
They are also waiting on God’s promises.
And they are asking the same question Abram asked.
Can we really trust what God has said?
Genesis is not just telling them history.
It is teaching them how God works.
And the message is simple.
God keeps His promises.
Even when His people struggle to trust Him.
And we will see that Genesis 15 and 16
Unfolds in three movements
That helps us understand
What happens
When a promise meets reality.

First, we see The Promise.
God speaks to Abram.
God reassures Abram.
God takes Abram outside
And tells him to look at the stars.
And in that moment Abram learns something
That every believer must eventually learn:
Faith begins by trusting what God has said.

But after the promise comes something
That most of us struggle with.
The Patience.
Because once God speaks
The waiting begins.
And the waiting
Is where faith gets stretched.
It’s where we discover
Whether we really trust
The God who made the promise.

And then comes the third movement.
The Problem.
Because when the waiting gets uncomfortable
The temptation begins to creep in.
Maybe we should help God out.
Abram and Sarai decide
To solve the problem themselves.
And what begins as a solution
Quickly becomes a complication.
So this morning
As we walk through Genesis 15 and 16
We are going to follow these three movements together:
The Promise
The Patience
The Problem
And through all of it
We are going to discover something incredibly important:
God’s promises do not depend on human strength.
They rest on God’s covenant grace.
So let’s look at the first one

TEACHING

Genesis 15 begins with Abram afraid.

Genesis 15:1 says,

“After these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.”

God begins by addressing Abram’s fear.
But Abram responds with an honest question.

Genesis 15:2–3 says,

“Abram said, ‘Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’”

Abram is not doubting God’s power.
He is struggling with God’s timing.
God responds by taking Abram outside.

Genesis 15:5 says,

“Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them… Your offspring will be that numerous.”

And then comes one of the most important verses in the entire Bible.

Genesis 15:6 says,

“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

Now, before we go any further,
We need to slow down for a moment
And make sure we understand that word-righteousness.
Because it’s a word we use in church a lot,
But many people aren’t always sure what it means.
Righteousness simply means being right with God.
It means being accepted by God,
Standing guiltless before Him,
Having a relationship with Him that is restored and clean.
It means that when God looks at you,
He no longer sees you as condemned by sin,
But as someone who is right in His sight.
And here is the surprising part of Genesis 15.
Abram was not counted righteous
Because he was perfect.
He wasn’t righteous
Because he obeyed every command.
He wasn’t righteous
Because he performed religious acts.
Abram believed the Lord.
And God credited that faith to him as righteousness.
Notice that word again – Credited
The word credited is actually a financial word.
It means something is placed into your account.
Imagine you open your bank account tomorrow morning
And you see a deposit for ten million dollars.
You didn’t earn it.
You didn’t work for it.
You didn’t deserve it.
Someone credited it to your account.
That’s the picture Genesis 15 is giving us.
Abram did not produce righteousness.
God credited righteousness to him.
And when we trust Jesus,
God places Christ’s righteousness into our account.
Which means when God looks at us,
He doesn’t see our sin first.
He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
Now, why is that verse so important?
Because the New Testament
Keeps coming back to it again and again
To explain how salvation works.
The apostle Paul quotes this verse in Romans 4:3 when he writes,

“For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.”

Paul uses Abraham to show that a person
Is not made right with God by works,
Or by performance,
Or by religious effort
But only by trusting the promise of God.
Paul quotes it again in Galatians 3:6 when he says,

“Just like Abraham who believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.”

And even James refers back to this moment in James 2:23, saying,

“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.”

Three different New Testament books point back to this one verse.
Why?
Because this is where we see the gospel before the cross.
Abram didn’t earn righteousness.
He didn’t achieve righteousness.
He didn’t work for righteousness.
He believed.
And because he believed
God credited righteousness to him.
And this is the same way every person in this room is saved today.
Not by earning righteousness.
Not by performing better.
But by trusting in Jesus
Who fulfilled the promise
The same Jesus.
Who died for our sins
And rose again.
And here’s the stunning part of Genesis 15.
Abram is declared righteous
Before he has done anything heroic,
Before Isaac is born,
Before the covenant is even sealed.
Which means righteousness
Was never about Abram’s performance.
It has always been about trusting the promise of God.
But God goes even further to reassure Abram.
He establishes a covenant.
In Abram’s time,
Covenant ceremonies involved a somewhat gross scene
Cutting animals in half and laying the pieces opposite each other.
Both parties would walk between the pieces as a way of saying,

“If I break this covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me.”

Which brings us to our second movement

Something familiar happens to Abram in Genesis 15.
Abram falls into a deep sleep.

Genesis 15:12 tells us,

“As the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him.”

Why does the phrase “deep sleep” sound familiar.
It is the same phrase used in Genesis 2
When God caused Adam
To fall into a deep sleep before creating Eve.

Genesis 2:21 says,

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept.”

Take a moment and think about this.
Some of the greatest acts of God in Scripture
Happen when His people are completely at rest.
Think of all God is doing “While you are sleeping”
I learned this during my last hospital stay
While I slept and rested my body began healing
Here is what we know about the Body and sleep:
1. The Body Repairs Itself
While you sleep,
Your body actually releases hormones
That repair damaged tissue.
Muscles rebuild.
Cells regenerate.
In many ways your body does its
Deepest healing while you are resting.
2. The Brain Cleans Itself
Scientists discovered that while you sleep,
Your brain activates something called the glymphatic system.
It literally flushes waste and toxins out of the brain.
While you sleep,
Your brain actually goes through a cleaning process.
The brain removes waste that built up during the day.
Your mind is being restored and reset
While you are not even aware of it.
3. The Immune System Strengthens
Sleep strengthens the immune system.
Your body produces infection-fighting proteins during sleep.
Your immune system becomes stronger.
While you sleep your body
Is strengthening your defenses.
Fighting infection.
Preparing you for tomorrow.
4. Memory Is Being Processed
Your brain is organizing memories and learning.
Your brain sorts information.
Strengthens important memories.
Discards what isn’t needed.
Even your mind is organizing your life while you sleep.
Just maybe there is something to this idea of rest?
Adam was asleep when God created Eve.
Abram is asleep when God establishes the covenant.
Why?
Because God is making something very clear.
This covenant does not depend on Abram’s ability.
It depends on God’s faithfulness.
Abram contributes nothing to this moment.
He doesn’t negotiate the covenant.
He doesn’t strengthen the covenant.
He doesn’t even walk through the covenant.
He is resting.
And while Abram rests, God moves.

Verse 17 says,

“When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.”

What is happening is as we mentioned before
Here Abram doesn’t walk through the pieces.
God does.
In the Old Testament,
Fire often represents the presence of God.
God alone passes through.
Which means God is saying something extraordinary.
Changing the normal covenant guidelines
Abram, if this covenant fails,
The responsibility is on Me.
The promise does not stand on your strength.
It stands on My faithfulness.
And this moment is pointing forward to the gospel.
Because thousands of years later,
God would again take the full weight of the covenant on Himself.
At the cross,
Jesus would bear the penalty for the broken covenant of humanity.
The covenant holds.
Not because humanity kept it perfectly.
But because Jesus fulfilled it completely.
His sacrifice is declaring all this depends on Me.
If the promise fails,
The responsibility falls on God.
This is covenant grace.
And the Israelites listening to Moses
Would have been stunned.
Their entire future depended on this covenant promise.
Not their strength.
Not their perfection.
But God’s faithfulness.
But then we come to Genesis 16
And find the third movement

And it shows us
What happens when waiting becomes difficult.
Years pass.
The promise still hasn’t happened.
And Sarai begins to look for another solution.

Genesis 16:2 says,

“So Sarai said to Abram, ‘Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.’”

In the ancient world this was a culturally accepted solution.
But culturally accepted does not mean spiritually faithful.
Abram listens to Sarai.
Hagar becomes pregnant.
And immediately the situation begins to fall apart.

Genesis 16:4 says,

“When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her.”

What was meant to solve the problem only multiplies it.
This self-effort becomes the seedbed where
Pride grows.
Resentment grows.
Conflict grows.
Human effort has taken control of what God promised to provide.
This is one of the great warnings of Scripture.
When we try to accomplish God’s promises
Through human strategies,
We often create consequences
That last far longer than the original problem.
And the consequences of this moment
Would stretch for centuries.
Hagar gives birth to Ishmael.

Genesis 16:12 describes him this way:

“He will be like a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand will be against him.”

That description is not just about personality.
It is about conflict.
It is about tension.
It is about a life
That would be marked by struggle with surrounding peoples.
Later in Genesis we see
That Isaac becomes the son
Through whom God’s covenant promise will continue.
Ishmael becomes the father of a different line of nations.
And throughout the Old Testament
We begin to see tension
Between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael.
What began as impatience with God
Created generational conflict.
The decision that felt like a solution in the moment
Created tension that lasted far beyond Abram and Sarai’s lifetime.
Even today,
Many historians see echoes of this tension
In the long-standing conflicts of the Middle East.
The line of Isaac eventually becomes the people of Israel.
The line of Ishmael becomes the ancestors of many Arab tribes.
But the Bible does not tell this story
So we will blame one group of people or another.
Scripture tells this story
To show us something about the human heart.
When we stop trusting God’s timing
And start forcing our own solutions,
The consequences rarely stay contained to one moment.
They ripple outward.
They affect families.
They affect generations.
They affect nations.
But even here we still see God’s mercy.
When Hagar flees into the wilderness,
The Angel of the Lord finds her.
And Hagar gives God a remarkable name.

Genesis 16:13 says,

“You are El Roi.” The God who sees me.

Even in the middle of human failure,
God still sees.
God still cares.
God still moves toward broken people.
The story of Abram does not end with human failure.
Because the covenant never depended on Abram.
It depended on God.
Years later
God would still fulfill His promise through Isaac.
But even that promise pointed to something greater.
Paul tells us in Romans 4
That Abraham’s story ultimately points to Jesus.

Romans 4:20–21 says,

“He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith… because he was fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do.”

The covenant God made with Abram
Was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

Hebrews 9:15 says,

“Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant.”

In Genesis 15,
God walked through the sacrifice alone.
But at the cross,
Jesus fulfilled that covenant promise through His own blood.
The promise was kept.
Not because humanity succeeded.
But because Jesus did.
Genesis 15 shows us the promise.
Genesis 15 also teaches us patience.
Genesis 16 shows us the problem when we stop trusting God.”
So let me ask you something.
Where in your life right now is the promise meeting reality?
Where are you waiting?
Where are you tempted to take control?
Maybe it’s financial pressure.
Maybe it’s a relationship.
Maybe it’s something in your family.
Maybe it’s a calling God placed on your life.
And the timeline is longer than you expected.
The temptation is always the same.
Trust God.
Or take control.
Genesis 15 reminds us
That righteousness comes through trusting God.
Genesis 16 reminds us
What happens when we try to replace faith with human effort.
At New City Church
We often say our mission is to “inspire people to trust in and live like Jesus.”
Notice the order.
Trust comes first.
When we trust God’s promises,
We become people who invite others to trust Him too.
Faith rests on covenant grace.
Not human strength.
The gospel reminds us
That the greatest promise of all has already been kept.
Jesus came.
Jesus died.
Jesus rose.
And because of Him,
The promises of God are secure.

2 Corinthians 1:20 says,

“For every one of God’s promises is ‘Yes’ in him.”

So the invitation today is simple.
Stop carrying what only God can fulfill.
Rest in the promise.
Trust the covenant.
Believe the God who keeps His word.
And remember what Genesis 15:6 tells us.

“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

Faith rests in God’s grace.
Not our strength.

So this morning
I want to invite you to respond.
Because faith is not just something we understand.
Faith is something we practice.
And for some of you,
The most honest prayer you could pray today is simply this:

“Lord, I’ve been trying to force what only You can fulfill.”

Maybe you’ve been carrying pressure
God never asked you to carry.
Trying to control outcomes.
Trying to fix situations.
Trying to rush God’s timing.
But today you need to lay that down.
So in a moment
I’m going to invite anyone who wants to come forward and pray.
This front area is not a stage.
It’s simply a place of surrender.
A place where we say,

“God, I’m choosing to trust Your promise more than my own plans.”

Maybe you need to pray about something
You’ve been trying to control.
Maybe you need to release something to God.
Maybe you need to ask Him
To strengthen your faith while you wait.
Or maybe today is the day
You finally stop trusting in your own effort to be right with God.
And instead you trust Jesus.
The same truth that saved Abraham
Is the truth that saves us.
Righteousness is not earned.
It is received through faith in Christ.
So if you need prayer today…
If you need to surrender something today…
If you need to trust Jesus today…
I want to invite you to come.
Our team
Will be here to pray with you.
You can kneel.
You can stand.
You can simply come and talk to God.
But don’t leave carrying
What God is inviting you to place in His hands.
Let’s pray.

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