Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who grafted us into His royal family. Amen.

The text for today’s meditation is Genesis 17: 1-7; 15-16B

Perhaps you’ve joined the surge of millions of Americans tracing their origins back several generations. Laurie and her parents have recently signed up for ancestry.com and they traced their family back to those that immigrated to the United States. Some folks are just curious while others are looking to see if they have any royalty or famous relatives. Laurie’s grandmother on her father’s side has the maiden name Disney, so Laurie looked to see where Walt Disney fit in. Her Grandmother’s grandfather and Walt’s father were brothers.

One web site, royalancestors.com can let you research whether or not you are related to kings and queens of previous generations through the colonists who are descendants of English or French kings or the Emperor Charlemagne. Laurie traced much further back than those that immigrated on her mother’s side to see a relation to Emperor Charlemagne. So, Laurie has royalty on her mother’s and father’s side after all Walt Disney is as close to royalty as you can get in this country.

In Today’s Old Testament reading, God allows Abram and Sarai to look forward, not backward. He gives them information about their descendants, not their ancestors so many of us are looking for. He informs them that they will have royal descendants, kings, and they will be the parents of whole nations of people. In so doing, God helps each of us see that we have been grafted into a royal family tree, spiritually speaking, that dates all the way back to Abraham and Sarah. As we look at God’s promises to Abraham and Sarah you will clearly see "Your Spiritual Family Tree."

God created a one sided covenant with Abram that would give him a rich and royal family tree and to be God to them and their descendants. It is a one sided covenant because God brings all the blessings to the relationship. Abram and Sarai did nothing that made them worthy of this covenant and they cannot do anything to fulfill the covenant either, it is all God. They were chosen by God along with their descendants to be the recipients of this wonderful covenant. God will bless Abram by making him the father of many nations. Among the descendants of the many nations God also promises that there will be kings. God guarantees the covenant by changing their names from Abram which means "exalted father" to Abraham which means "father of many" and Sarai which we are unsure of its meaning to Sarah which means "princess." As the mother of kings she deserves a royal tile which God gives her. The blessings of this covenant are not temporary but instead everlasting for Abram, Sarai, and their descendants.

God fulfilled His promises in spite of Abram’s and Sarai’s circumstances. He proves He is the ruler over all the earth by giving a 99 year old man and a barren 89 year old woman a child. He fulfilled the promise even though Abram laughed at the prospect of having a child at their age. He fulfilled the promise even though they took matters in their own hands with Hagar who gave birth to Ishmael who is thirteen years old now.

God fulfilled His promise with physical descendants. God’s promise produced two nations of people from Abraham; the descendants of Ishmael through Hagar and the descendants of Isaac through Sarah which is the nation of Israel. Kings were indeed descended from Abraham and Sarah: all the kings of Israel descended from them including the greatest of which were David and Solomon. They were truly the greatest earthly kings to descend from Abraham and Sarah but there is a greater king than all

earthly kings to descend. The final and greatest king to descend is the king of kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.

God fulfills His promises and all of them are because of the greatest physical descendant of Abraham and Sarah, King Jesus. Jesus is a King who came to serve. Jesus is a King who came to die as it says in Mark 8 verse 31 "And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again." He came to die in spite of what Peter and the other disciples’ expectations were. Other expectations were that He came for the righteous but he did not, Luke 3 verses 7 through 9 "He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ⁹ Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." He who is righteous came to die for the unrighteous. Look at the epistle; Romans 5 verses 6 through 8 "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

It is Jesus’ serving and dying that makes possible the covenant by which God is "God to you"; that is Jesus’ death has reconciled us to God, brought us back together with God which we see in Romans 5 verses 10 and 11; "¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

Therefore, God has also fulfilled His promise with spiritual descendants. We are no longer trapped in the "lineage of death" as it is described in Romans 5 verse 12; "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—." Now all who share the faith of Abraham are his true descendants as Paul says in Romans 4 verse 6 "Abraham; who is the father of us all." God "grafts" souls into this new line of Abraham through baptism and faith through Abraham’s great king of kings, Jesus Christ.

So, we are also members of this royal family tree. God established His covenant with you; "to be God to you and to your offspring after you." That is, Jesus’ death on the cross has reconciled God to you by taking away every sin that separated you from God. That makes us heirs to the promise as Paul says in Romans 8 verse 17 "and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." We too are royal, reigning with Christ. God’s work of "grafting" into the family will continue to future generations until our King returns. An eternal family reunion awaits us – with our father and mother Abraham and Sarah, with Isaac, David, and with our own loved ones, all in the arms of Jesus.

Today, God has helped you trace your spiritual family tree back more than four thousand years, all the way back to Abraham and Sarah. And you didn’t need ancestry.com or Royalancestors.com to know that your spiritual family tree contains royalty, not only David and Solomon, but the Anointed One, Jesus Christ, who reigns eternally as King of kings and Lord of lords. With him, you and all in this incredible spiritual family tree will reign forever!

Amen.