Does God Still Love Me When I Fail?: Genesis 15

Sermon Recap: September 13, 2026

If you have ever felt like your relationship with God depends entirely on how well you perform, you are not alone, and you are not wrong to feel the weight of that. Biblical faith is not about earning God's approval through good behavior. It is about trusting a God who has already done everything necessary to bring you close to him.

How God's Covenant with Abraham Shows Us What Trusting God Really Looks Like

Most of us know the feeling. You prayed, you waited, and nothing seemed to change. You told yourself you believed, but the circumstances around you told a different story. That is exactly where Abraham found himself in Genesis 15.

God had already made a stunning promise back in Genesis 12: Abraham would have a son, and through that son, God would build an entire nation. Years had passed. Abraham had no child. And in Genesis 15, when God appears to Abraham in a vision and says, "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great," Abraham does something that might surprise you. He pushes back. He essentially says, God, I hear you, but I am looking around at my life and I cannot see how any of this is going to work.

Lead Pastor Sean Busse pointed out something important here: biblical faith does not pretend that circumstances are not difficult. In fact, it does the opposite. Biblical faith brings what is confusing or painful directly to God, rather than hiding it from him. Some of us grew up in traditions where doubt felt like a spiritual failure. Sean was clear: it is 100 percent appropriate to bring your confusion, your grief, and your unanswered questions right to God and say, "I trust you, but I do not understand this."

God does not shame Abraham for asking. Instead, he takes Abraham outside under the night sky and says, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. So shall your offspring be." Abraham is standing there with no son, holding nothing but a promise. And then we reach one of the most important verses in all of Scripture. Genesis 15:6 says, "And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness." Abraham trusted that God was faithful, and God counted that trust as righteousness, as being right with him.

One honest step you can take today: the next time you feel the gap between what God has promised and what you can see, write it down. Tell God exactly what you see and exactly what you are struggling to believe. That is not weakness. That is the beginning of trusting God.

If you want to learn more about what our church family believes about faith and the Bible, find it here.

What Does It Mean to Be Saved by Faith Alone, Not by What You Do?

After Abraham voices his doubt, God does something unexpected. He asks Abraham to gather a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon, and to cut them in half and lay the pieces across from each other. To modern readers, this feels strange. But Abraham understood immediately what was happening. In the ancient Near East, this ritual was called "cutting a covenant." Both parties would walk between the split animals as a way of saying: if I break this agreement, may I become like these slaughtered animals.

So Abraham sets everything up. He waits. Birds of prey come down on the carcasses and he drives them away. Then, as the sun goes down, a deep sleep falls over Abraham. This detail is not accidental. The only other time this specific phrase appears in Genesis is in chapter 2, when Adam falls into a deep sleep and God acts. Here again, Abraham sleeps, and God acts.

Here is the moment that changes everything. A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, signs of God's own presence throughout Scripture, pass between the pieces. God walks through the covenant alone. Abraham does not walk through. He is not even awake. He is completely passive. This is not a mutual agreement between two equal parties. This is God staking his own name on a promise he intends to keep regardless of what Abraham does.

Sean said it plainly: the promise rests on God's faithfulness, not on Abraham's. And that is really good news, because Abraham fails in the very next chapter. He was saved by faith alone, not by his performance. The same is true for you.

A practical step for this week: when you catch yourself thinking "if I just do better, God will finally be pleased with me," pause and ask yourself whose faithfulness you are actually depending on. Write down one specific area where you have been trying to earn what God has already given.

You do not have to figure this out alone. If you are looking for a community that takes these questions seriously, connect here.

How Christ Bore Our Curse So You Can Stop Living Under One

Abraham was a covenant breaker. So was Isaac. So was Jacob. So was Israel. So are we. And in the ancient covenant ritual, the rule was clear: the one who breaks the covenant bears the curse. If the animals represent what happens to the one who breaks the agreement, then every one of us is in serious trouble.

But thousands of years after Abraham stood under that starry sky, an offspring came from his lineage. His name is Jesus. And unlike every person before him, Jesus was perfectly faithful. He perfectly trusted the Father. He perfectly obeyed. He perfectly loved. Jesus deserved every covenant blessing. And yet, as Paul writes in Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us."

That is the gospel hidden in the middle of Genesis 15. God made a promise. Humanity broke it. The covenant-keeping God bore the covenant breaker's curse. Jesus was beaten, mocked, and nailed to a cross. He bore our sin and endured our judgment. And three days later, he rose from the grave, defeating the curse entirely.

Sean was direct about how this changes Monday morning. Many of us say we believe the gospel for salvation, and then we turn right around and live as if the covenant still depends on us. We wake up thinking: if I read my Bible enough, if I control my temper, if I just do not mess up today, then God will love me. That, Sean said, is a false gospel. Christ already kept the covenant. It is finished.

So what does living from the gospel actually look like? When you sin, you repent instead of hide. When you obey, you respond instead of perform. When you suffer, you rest instead of scramble to interpret God's mood. When you serve, you give instead of trying to prove something. This is not a checklist. It is a completely different way of being alive.

One step to take today: the next time you fail and feel the urge to hide from God or punish yourself, stop. Say out loud: "Christ already bore this. I am running to him, not away."

What Genesis 15 Teaches Us About Faith, Righteousness, and the Gospel

Genesis 15 is one of the richest chapters in the entire Bible, and it contains three movements that build toward the gospel.

1. God Speaks and Abraham Doubts

What happened: God promises Abraham a son and a legacy as vast as the stars. Abraham looks at his circumstances and honestly questions how any of it could come true.

Why it matters: Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Bringing your honest questions to God is exactly what biblical faith looks like.

2. God Makes a Covenant Abraham Cannot Keep

What happened: God instructs Abraham to prepare the animals for a covenant ceremony. Abraham falls into a deep sleep, and God passes through alone.

Why it matters: The promise was never secured by Abraham's faithfulness. It was secured by God's. Salvation has always rested on what God does, not what we do.

3. The Covenant Keeper Bears the Covenant Breaker's Curse

What happened: Thousands of years later, Jesus, the offspring of Abraham, perfectly kept what every human being failed to keep. He then bore the curse of those who broke it.

Why it matters: Genesis 15:6 says Abraham "believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness." The same is true today. Righteousness is received by faith, not earned by performance.

There Is a Place for You in This Conversation, Right Here in North Texas

The feeling that you have to earn your way back to God is not unique to any one neighborhood or season of life. It is a weight that people carry quietly across Fort Worth and the surrounding communities, from Tehama Ridge and Reata Ranch to Sendera and Woodland Springs, and far beyond. That quiet exhaustion of trying to be good enough, of stringing together enough right days to feel like God might finally be pleased, is something our church family hears about all the time.

If that is where you are, whether you are in the middle of a hard season or just beginning to ask these questions for the first time, you are welcome here. Alliance Community Fellowship gathers every Sunday at 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. in Fort Worth, and we would love for you to come as you are. You can plan your visit here before you walk through the door.

You Are Not Saved by Your Best Days

The covenant-keeping God bore the curse of the covenant breaker. That sentence is the heartbeat of the gospel, and it was hiding in Genesis 15 long before anyone ever preached it in a church building. You do not have to perform your way into God's love. You receive it, rest in it, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, you live from it.

If something in this post stirred a question you have been carrying, or if you are walking through something heavy right now, we want to hear from you. Share your prayer request here so our church family can walk with you. And if you are curious about who we are and what we believe, take the next step here to learn more about Alliance Community Fellowship.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does God still love me when I fail?
A: Yes, and Genesis 15 shows us why. God's love for Abraham was never based on Abraham's performance, and Abraham failed repeatedly. The gospel is the good news that the covenant-keeping God bore the curse for covenant breakers like us, which means failure does not disqualify you from his love. It is actually an invitation to run toward him, not away.

Q: Why do I feel like I have to earn God's love?
A: Many of us have absorbed a version of faith that quietly teaches: if you are good enough, God will accept you. That is a false gospel, and it is exhausting. The truth is that Jesus already kept the covenant perfectly on your behalf. You are invited to live from that reality, not to try to recreate it through your own effort.

Q: How do I know God will keep his promises?
A: In Genesis 15, God answered that question in a dramatic way. He passed through the covenant ceremony alone, staking his own name and existence on the promise he made. The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate proof that God keeps what he promises. The empty tomb is your assurance.

Q: What does it look like practically to stop hiding from God after I sin?
A: It starts with understanding that if Christ already bore your curse, there is no condemnation waiting for you when you come back. Repentance becomes the natural response rather than hiding, self-punishment, or bargaining. You simply come back and say, "I trust you," the same way Abraham did under a sky full of stars.

Q: How is the gospel connected to the Old Testament stories in Genesis?
A: The gospel is not a New Testament invention. It was woven into the story of God and humanity from the very beginning. In Genesis 15, we see God making an unconditional covenant with Abraham, one secured entirely by God's faithfulness. That covenant finds its full fulfillment in Jesus, the offspring of Abraham who perfectly kept what no one else could and bore the curse so that all who trust in him could be counted righteous.