From Death Comes Life

Genesis 17:15-27

P.O.P.

God’s promises are fulfilled through a barren womb to display He truly is the author of life.

Kids

God keeps his promises even when it seems there is no hope.

I. God will give life in the most barren situation.

God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah

God declares

Abraham doubts then laughs (eventually obeys)

Barrenness

Abraham - 99 years old

Sarah - 90 years old, passed childbearing age

Man’s solution

Both doubt (become impatient)

Sarah - take Hagar to provide a child

Abraham - takes Hagar and insists on Ishmael being the promised child

Laugh at God’s plan

God’s plan

Abraham and Sarah will have a child and they will name him Isaac

Life will be given in a barren, dead womb

II. God will provide a way of salvation.

God’s provision

A son will be given

A sign is provided

Circumcision

Blood covenant

Generational reminder life comes from God

Set apart from the world

Warning for disobdience: cut off (Gen. 17:14)

The covenant benefits will be fulfilled (land, offspring, kings)

Abraham’s faith

Doubts and laughs

Obeys

Assurance of God’s promise

Genesis 15:17–18 “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,”

God alone walked through the animals for the covenant.

God placed the covenant upon his own name.

If he does not keep his promise he must be like the animals he is walking through.

If Abraham and his decedents do not keep the promise, he will take their punishment.

Here is the problem that is faced:

We did break the covenant:

Jeremiah 11:10 “They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers.”

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

We faced being cut off by death:

Ezekiel 37:3–6 “And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

Here is the hope we have:

God would keep his promise:

Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

God would provide a better covenant:

Jeremiah 31:31–33 ““Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

God would provide a way of assurance in this New Covenant:

Colossians 2:11–15 “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

We have assurance because of who God is:

2 Corinthians 1:20–22 “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”

Hebrews 9:13–15 “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.”

Not only are God’s promises fulfilled through a barren womb but ultimatly through an empty tomb to display He is truly the author of life — even in the face of death!