Count the Stars (Part 2) | Steve Pixler | Preached live at Freedom Life Church

Last episode, we talked about “Coming Outside” the tent of (1) limited ekklesia; (2) limited kingdom; (3) limited grace; and (4) limited purpose. These four walls support the “ceiling” of LIMITED ESCHATOLOGY. God is calling the church to “come outside” the limited eschatology that diverts our faith “resources” away from advancing the kingdom. He is calling us to stand within “the tabernacle God pitched and not man” and see the infinite possibilities of KINGDOM GENERATIONS.
In this episode, let's look at THE STARS.
FROM SAND TO STARS, FROM SEA TO SKY
God yanked Abram out of his self-limiting tent, stood him upright under the heavens and told him, “Count the stars, if you think you can!” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.
Obviously, God wanted Abram to believe that he would have many children-that his children would be numerous. But there was more to the “star metaphor” than just a symbol of POPULATION. The stars were also a symbol of POSITION. God wanted Abram to “count the stars” to understand the high plans that God had for his generations.
God had already promised Abram that he would give him “all the land that you see” and that his offspring would be as numerous as “the dust of the earth” (later described as “the sand on the seashore,” Genesis 22:17); but now, God wanted Abram to lift up his eyes and see his generations symbolized by the stars of the heavens.
As Abram well knew, the stars of the sky represented “government powers” and “the gods” that stood behind them. Abram immigrated from Ur of the Chaldees, one of the great empires that shaped the ancient world, and he knew that the kings of the earth depicted themselves and their generations as “the stars” of the heavens. He also knew that these kings exalted themselves in local mythology as “divine kings,” as the embodiment of the gods of the nations. So the stars would have represented the government and glory of the nations.
When God told Abram that he would make his children as numerous as the dust-the sand of the seashore-and then told him to count the stars, it would have been obvious to Abram what God was saying: “I will take your children from the shapeless, formless dust of the ground and raise them up like the stars to guide and govern the nations of the earth. I will make your children kings!”
Think about the imagery Abram would have pondered as he stood staring at the twinkling stars. His children would be at first like the sand of the seashore, churned out by the waters of chaos, formless, shapeless, unstable, unusable for building anything permanent and lasting. But over time, through the process of preparation and purification (as God described in the last few verses of Genesis 15), Abram’s children would be elevated to positions of influence and authority throughout the nations of the world.
“Count the stars-so shall your descendants be!”
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Great series. Hitting home...ouch!