The passage we just read speaks of Abraham. Abraham holds a place of tremendous importance in the Christian faith.

In the New Testament, there is a letter written by an apostle named Paul to the churches in the region of Galatia. In it, we find words:

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14)

We have all heard, at some point, that Jesus was crucified. But the Bible tells us that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed. In other words, Jesus became a curse. Now, that ought to give us pause. The Son of God—and yet He became a curse. What could He possibly have done wrong? Nothing. It was not because of any fault of His own. He became a curse because it was the only way to give us a blessing—it was unavoidable. And do you know what that letter we just read calls that blessing? “The blessing of Abraham.”

That is why Abraham matters so much to us. The most important figure in our faith is, of course, Jesus Christ. And yet the reason Jesus Christ became a curse was to give us a blessing—and that blessing is called “the blessing of Abraham.” What that means is this: every promise God made to Abraham, He is now giving to us as well. Everything God said to Abraham—“I will do this for you”—He is saying to those of us who believe in Jesus too. And so, if we look carefully at what God promised to Abraham, we will come to understand clearly what it is that we are meant to receive from God.

Many people find themselves confused in their life of faith. One reason for this is simply that the Bible is such a thick book. It says this, and it says that—and sometimes it can seem as though the two are in contradiction with each other, leaving us unsure of what we should do.

When that happens, it helps to go back to what is most fundamental and core. And that is this: the blessing given to us through Jesus Christ is the very same blessing that God had already promised to a man named Abraham long ago. This is why it is so important to take a close look at what God promised to Abraham. Now, we have been using the word “God”—but this word, both in the Bible and in everyday life, is essentially the same as what people generally mean when they say “god.” To put it simply: a certain god appeared to Abraham. And that god made a promise, saying, “I will make a covenant with you. I will give you this—and in return, I ask this of you.”

In Genesis 17, this god spoke  these words to Abraham at the age of 99. At ninety-nine, he met with that god once again—this time to reaffirm the covenant between them. Abraham had first encountered this god at the age of seventy-five. Twenty-five years had passed since then, and in this passage, every promise God had made to Abraham is gathered together in one place.

This god made three great promises to Abraham.

The first was the land—the land of Canaan, which is the region we know today as Palestine, where the nation of Israel now stands. “I will give this land to you and to your descendants.”

The second was this: “Your descendants will multiply as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore.” But how many children did Abraham actually have at the age of 99? Not a single one born of his wife. He did have a child born of his servant, but God made clear that it was not through that child that He would build Abraham’s descendants. “It will be through the child your wife bears,” He said. “I will give you descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand of the earth. Your wife will bear you a son.” But his wife was 75 years old at the time and past the age of childbearing. In other words, she had already lost the physical ability to have a baby. Nevertheless, God promised that she would bear a child, and that through that child a great nation would rise.

The third promise was this: “I myself will be their God. I will be their King.”

To summarize these three promises: first, the land; second, the descendants; and third, “I will be your King—I will be your God.”

Now, let us consider whether any of this can actually be fulfilled.

His wife has lost the ability to bear children. And yet, the promise is that his descendants will multiply like the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore. By common sense, by biology, by science—is this possible or impossible? It is impossible. No matter how vigorous a man may be, he cannot father a child with a woman who is no longer able to conceive. So this first promise is impossible.

Then what about the second promise—that his descendants would conquer the land of Canaan, and that this land would become theirs? Possible or impossible? Impossible as well. That land was not empty. Many peoples were already living there. For God to give that land to Abraham’s descendants, those descendants would first have to multiply and then conquer it. But if no child can be born, how could they ever conquer anything? So this promise, too, is impossible.

And the third—“I will dwell among you and be your God.” But if there are no descendants to speak of, whose God will He be? This third promise is impossible as well.

So what we have here is the god who appeared and made nothing but impossible promises. And yet Abraham believed every one of them and followed this god for twenty-five years. Looking back, one might think, “Oh, I’ve been deceived.” But by then, he had already given up too much to think that way. Twenty-five years of leaving his homeland behind, following this god through hardship after hardship. He would have wanted it all to be true—but the truth is, there was simply no basis to believe. If we are not careful, we might even wonder: “Is the god we believe in nothing more than a fraud?”

Then, let us look at this from another angle. Is there any way to confirm whether those promises were true or not? Could Abraham ever confirm with his own eyes that they had been fulfilled?

“Your descendants will multiply like the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore.” If that were to happen, we are talking about hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions of people. Could Abraham live to see his descendants grow to such a number? Even if it were all fulfilled exactly as promised, how long would he have to live to witness it with his own eyes? A thousand years? Two thousand? There is no way to verify that promise within a lifetime.

What about his descendants conquering and ruling over the land? Is there any way to confirm that? No. He could never see it.

And God dwelling among them and becoming their King—could that be confirmed either? No. That too is beyond what any one person could witness and verify.

“What is going on here?” Among all kinds of promises, what makes people feel most frustrated is one that is impossible to keep—but actually, it is not even frustrating because it is unbelievable. What is worse, there is no way of knowing whether that promise will ever be fulfilled or not. In that case, it is no different from being handed a blank check. There is no reason to rejoice over such a promise. After all, it is impossible, and there is no way to confirm.

It is like this: Imagine I made a promise to you today. I am a pastor, and my child will one day grow up and get married. And when that happens, they will have children of their own—and I will have a grandchild. Now imagine I said to you: “I am praying that my grandchild will become the chairman of Samsung. And on the day that happens, I will buy each and every one of you a car!” Are you excited? I wouldn’t be. For one thing, there is no reason to think this pastor’s grandchild is going to become the chairman of Samsung. And even if it did happen—would any of us even be around to see it? No. So this is nothing but an empty promise. No one is going to get excited about that. They would just scoff, laugh it off, and move on.

It was no different when this god made those promises to Abraham. Any ordinary person would have just scoffed and walked away. And yet Abraham believed every one of those promises and kept following.

But if our faith were to stop at nothing more than vaguely believing in promises we can never confirm—then our faith is, in all honesty, utterly in vain. And if that were the case, there would be no reason to encourage you to “follow and serve this god.”

But then, right when Abraham was 99 years old, this god made one more promise. It is not in the passage we just read, but the promise was this: “This time next year, you will have a son. Your wife will bear you a son.”

Now let us look at this promise. Is it possible? No. Impossible, just as before. So there is still nothing to rejoice about—or so it seems. And yet, something has changed. This promise can actually be confirmed. When? Next year. This time next year, Abraham will know. If a child is born, then that impossible promise will have come true—and Abraham will know beyond any doubt: “Everything this god has promised, no matter how impossible it may seem, will be fulfilled.” But if next year comes and his wife bears no child, then he will know that too: “This god has been deceiving me for twenty-five years.” And he would have every reason to walk away.

So, from that moment on, Abraham waited. That one year meant everything to him. Every time he came home, what do you think he looked at? His wife’s belly. “Has it grown? Has anything changed?” But by about six months in, perhaps it had grown a little. But he still was not sure. Was it simply the weight that comes with age, or was there truly a child growing inside her? How could he know?

And then, after a full year had passed, his wife, Sarah, actually gave birth. A son. The impossible had become possible, right before his very eyes. And this is not a fairy tale. This actually happened. That child grew and had descendants of his own, and it is through them that the nation of Israel exists today. This is not a dream or a story. The nation of Israel came into being in exactly this way—through the descendants of Abraham and Isaac, and through the line of Jacob, who spread and multiplied into the people we know as Israel today.

Now, the fact that this impossible thing was actually confirmed—that is everything. Because, as we said earlier, there were three other promises that had seemed just as impossible. First: I will give you this land. Second: your descendants will multiply. Third: I will be their God. With the birth of that son, Abraham now obtained the undeniable evidence—that even those three seemingly impossible promises would surely be fulfilled.

For twenty-five years, people must have mocked Abraham. “You are following a god who makes no sense? A god who says he will make you into a great nation—when your wife cannot even bear a child? A god who says all peoples of the earth will be blessed through you? A god who created heaven and earth and says he will be with you? Does any of that make sense? Don’t be fooled! You left your father’s house for nothing!” How painful it must have been for him. He too needed evidence. And then, at the very end, when he watched that son be born—that was when he received it. “Everything this god has promised will be fulfilled. No matter how impossible it seems, it will surely be fulfilled.”

From that point on, Abraham believed—even in what he could not see. It was as if he witnessed it himself with his own eyes. “My descendants will multiply like the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore! Other peoples may be living there now, but the day will come when my descendants will possess the land of Canaan!” And along with that came another conviction: “God will dwell among them and be their God! He will be with them! He will lead them!”

And there was more. God had also promised, “Kings shall come from you,”—and further, “One who will possess the gate of his enemies will come from among your descendants.” And so Abraham came to fully hold in faith that from among his own descendants, the Savior of all mankind would come.

And that faith has now been fulfilled in us. Jesus Christ truly came—as a descendant of Abraham, and as a descendant of David. And through Him, we have come to receive the blessing of Abraham. That blessing has come upon us. The promise God made to Abraham—“I will be with them and be their God”—has been fulfilled in every one of us. “I will be with you, and I will be your God!”

Therefore, the final destination of our faith is not here. It is the kingdom of heaven—the eternal kingdom. And when we go there, we will not go as ghosts, floating about without form. We will go with a body. Not this body that grows weary and decays, but a body that will never decay. It is hard to believe. It is almost impossible even to imagine. That a person could rise from the dead—that is hard enough to believe. That a person could then live forever in heaven, never to die again—that too is hard to believe. And yet this is not something we believe in vaguely.

Even as Jesus made that promise, He gave us one more promise—one that could be confirmed right here, right now. What was it? “When I go to the Father—when I go to heaven ahead of you—I will ask the Father, and He will send you the Holy Spirit.” In other words, He would send us the Spirit of God. “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, open your understanding to the Word of God, and make the spiritual reality clearly known to you.”

Enjoying the resurrection and eternal life—that is something that will be fulfilled in heaven. But receiving the Holy Spirit does not take place in heaven. It happens here, on this earth. So if there is no God, and no resurrection, then there would be no receiving of the Holy Spirit either. But if God is truly alive, if Jesus is truly in heaven, and if the resurrection is real—then the receiving of the Holy Spirit happens right here on this earth. And when it does, real and remarkable things take place—demons are driven out in the name of Jesus, and all kinds of miraculous wonders truly happen, right here on this earth.

And so the faith of us Christians is a faith with experience—a faith with testimony. It is not a faith that says, “Well, I’ll find out when I die.” It is not a faith where we only know at the end. It is a faith in which we can have testimony—real, undeniable testimony—while we are still here on this earth.

Beloved, if you have no testimony of this god, you may be coming to church now, but one day you may drift back into the world and lose all interest. You may attend for two or three years, and then one day say, “I’ve had enough,” and walk away. We must have testimony. We must have testimony that cannot be shaken. Every one of us must experience this—the things that seem impossible in human eyes actually being fulfilled before us just as God has promised. The life of faith is not meant to be comfortable and easy. We must truly seek to experience the Word. We must make the effort, we must pray, and we must ask even for the things that seem impossible. We must have that experience.

If you are suffering from any illness, pray and ask God to heal you. Do not give up. Pastor Ki-Dong Kim once came close to complete blindness. The first time I met him personally and greeted him, he did not recognize me the second time we met. At first, I thought he simply had trouble remembering faces. At the time, I had just returned from serving as a missionary in China, and when I introduced myself saying, “I’ve come from China,” he asked, “Are you Korean-Chinese?” The next time we met, he asked the same thing again. I thought to myself, “He meets so many people—no wonder he can’t remember.” But later, I came to find out that he had been living in a state of near-total blindness for a very long time.

And yet he prayed. When the doctors said there was no hope of recovery—that it was impossible—he prayed. For a full year, he made up his mind and prayed with total focus and dedication. Then one day, while he was in the middle of preaching, his vision began to return—starting from the front, spreading outward, until he could see everything clearly. He had been constantly bumping into things and knocking things over—all because he could not see. And yet this man held on to God’s promise and prayed for the impossible. Today, his eyesight has been fully restored. His vision is remarkably good.

Testimony like this can be woven throughout our lives. We must have this kind of testimony—so that no matter what anyone says, we can declare with confidence, “I have met God!” In other churches, we may often hear people say, “I believe in God! I believe in Jesus!” But here, you will hear something different. “I met God in 1992!” It is not just a one-sided declaration of “I believe! I believe!”; it is a real meeting. It is having a real experience. It is possessing testimony.

I bless you, in the name of Jesus, that every one of you would come to meet God.

God our Father, we pray that every soul gathered here would truly come to meet You—the living God. May that meeting become a profound experience, and may it serve as testimony to the eternal hope You have promised. Help every one of us, even while we are still on this earth, to have testimony of heaven’s reality, of the resurrection, and of the glory that awaits us in Your Son. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.