All in

Intro

“And you know that I love you, Here and now, not forever. I can give you the present, I don't know 'bout the future, That's all stuff and nonsense.”

If you don’t recognise it, that’s the Chorus from the song Stuff and Nonsense by the band Split Enz. While it came out in the 80s, in a lot of ways, it captures that difficulty many people today have with comittment. I remeber going to a wedding a few years ago of some friends of ours and listening to the vows and thinking, wait they sound just like this song. They weren’t promising ‘for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health’…they were saying pretty much what Tim Finn says here. I can’t know the future, I can’t tell how I’ll feel about things, so I can’t possibly commit.

But this difficulty committing is not just changing weddings. It’s affecting our whole society. Membership in everything from Scout troops to trade unions is waaaay down. And now, researchers are noticing that even commitment to the most basic relationships like friendships is suffering. This week in the Atlantic there was an article about how more and more young people are struggling to know how to make and keep friends.

The authors said it’s unclear what all the causes are but part of the trouble seems to be that real relationships require us to give up our freedom, we have to comit to be with this person to have coffee or go watch the footy or just hang out, which means for that time we can’t go elsewhere. But for decades now we’ve been told that freedom, our individual choice to do what we want, be who we want to be is the most important thing in life.

Turns out deep relationships, from friendships all the way through to marriage, require we give up some freedom and commit. And in this cultural moment we are finding it so hard to do just that.

For those who are Christians, we know believe that God promises that life committed to him is the best life possible. Jesus says that he came to bring life and life to the full.

But we are not outside our culture. We are not unaffected by our cutlures struggles with commitment. And it’s likely that at least some times, we will struggle with comitment to him.

And as we come to look at the next part of the story of Abram in Genesis 17, I’m hoping we’ll see that God is determined for us to have a real, authentic and close relationship with him. And however we might struggle, he is 100% committed to us.

prayer

1. God is committed to us even when we think he might’ve left us to our own devices

State

When we get to Genesis 17, it’s been 13 years since Ishmael was born. He hasn’t heard from God. There’s no voice, no messengers, no nothing. For 13 years he’s just lived his life. It seems he concluded that God has fulfilled his promise, he has the son, now he just has to get on with the job

Perhaps we’ve felt a bit like that. Perhaps we feel we know about God, we know the facts of the story, we’re familiar with the shape of faith, but somedays, perhaps most, it feels like God has just left us to our own devices.

Abram likely felt that way, but then God showed up again.

Show

Genesis 17:1 NRSV

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.

Explain

It’s always important to pay attention to names in the bible, particularly the names of God. Here God reveals himself using the name ‘El-Shaddai’ often translated God almighty. Ok, why this name?

Well, as we look at what God says next, we look at the context of this verse, we see that God is here telling Abram that he is going to now fulfil the promise that he made earlier.

Which is a surprise isn’t it? Because Abram thought the promise was already being fulfilled - here’s Ishamel.

But God interrupts Abram’s expectations. God comes and reveals a new name, and with that new name, makes a new commitment a new covenant with Abram.

A covenant is an agreement between two parties. God had already made a covenant with Abram back in Genesis 12. God promised Abram 3 things: land, people and blessing. And we saw that this covenant was one sided - God just promised to make it happen, Abram didn’t have to do anything.

But this new covenant God makes with Abram involves something more. God gives him a new name: Abraham, father of many nations, and tells Abraham that he will fulfil this promises in a ludicrously, laughable way - and laughter is the key word here - Sarai his 90 year old wife is going to conceive within a year.

What’s the point of all this? What’s really new here.

Look at verses 7-8

Genesis 17:7–8 NRSV

I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”

Did you see it?

It’s relationship. “I will be God to you and your offspring” no matter what. All the blessing is just a sign of God’s commitment to him.

Illustration

When I was 22 and living in a share house in Bruce I remember the day my housemate told us he was going to propose to his girlfriend. He came and said, well boys, I’ve emptied the bank account, she better like the ring!

That’s what God is doing here. It’s a marriage proposal.

And the point for us, when God commits to us, he’s all in.

That’s why Abram is told in verse 1, ‘walk before me and be blameless’ perhaps a better way to translate it might be ‘stick with me and give me your whole heart’.

People often wonder, how can I feel closer to God? It’s one thing to know facts about him but it’s another thing to really trust him. Some of us have learned plenty about God. Some of us can rattle of facts about him, we’ve know of him, been associated with him for a long time. But there’s been this niggling question in our minds ‘can I really give him my whole life’?

There may be all sorts of reasons why we don’t feel close to God. There may be times when we feel like we’re in the wilderness, like Hagar was last week, where it’s not just God who feels distant, everything feels distant!

Some of us just may be wired a certian way, we’re more concrete, naturally sceptical people.

Whatever the case, God is in the business of going all in with us - he does it with Abraham, he’s turned it up to 11 in Jesus. And puts it all on the line with us to push us off the fence. To push us to fully committing to him.

Abram is being directed to do something pretty serious. Circumcision is a painful ritual, it’s not something you do if you’re only kicking the tyres.

But the whole point is to show us that

God’s love for us is based on his prior promise, not our present performance. Abram’s just being asked to live as if what God has said, he will do. In other words, trust.

Apply

The author Chris Morphew talks about his mother’s experience of struggling to commit to God. She’d grown up in church, knew all the Sunday school answers, and had some pretty serious bible trivia chops, but God just didn’t feel real to her. How could she commit?

When she shared this with her mother, her mother said, ‘Why don’t you just live as if it’s true for a while and see what happens”

And brothers and sisters, that is good advice.

Abram couldn’t know for certain that God won’t change. Maybe Sarah’s pregnancy was just some fluke!

But what Abram could do, and did do is live as if God really is El Shaddai, God almighty, the promise fulfiller who has gone all in on this proposal.

If we want to feel close to God, the first step might be to ask, what if he he has got down on one knee with a rose between his teeth and a ring in his hand and said ‘will you’? The first step might be to say ‘I will’.

Chris Morphew said, the more his Mum began to live as if God’s promises are true, the more she discovered they actually are.

Transition

But that still leaves us with a quesiton. Sure, God wants to be our God, does he really need us. Afterall, he’s God almighty, and I’m Jane who can bench press 15 kilos on a good day.

2. God is committed to us even when we think he doesn’t need us

State

God commits not just to be with us, but to work through us, even when we think he doesn’t need us.

Explain:

Perhaps after the events with Hagar in chapter 16, Sarai thought that God had no need for her. Afterall, Ishmael was there, Sarai was now pushing 90. You wouldn’ve blame her for thinking, I’ve got nothing to offer.

Even when God says point blank to Abraham, Sarai is going to be Sarah - princess, she’s going to be the mother of nations and kings Abraham reacts like ‘Sarai? What?’ He laughs and points back to Ishamel,

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Genesis 17:18 “oh that Ishamel might live in your sight”

Explain

Ishmael’s the obvious path isn’t he? He’s got all the right stuff. He’s the child you gave me God. Just like you said.

We don’t need Sarai, I’ve got a son.

Perhaps we’ve heard that too. That person over there, they’ve got the obvious gifts. They’re talented, they’re charismatic, they’re fit and strong, and smart. But you? What can you do?

As we saw last week, God’s grace is untamed, and even when we think he might have no use for us, or when others have said as much, he remains committed and offers to include us in his plans.

Just think about who gets the sign of God’s covenant faithfulness. Who get’s the mark that is supposed to show God’s commitment to his people?

Look closely at verse 12

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Genesis 17:12 NRSV

Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.

8 day old babies. They’re cute, but not exactly useful are they!

Slaves - no status in the eyes of the world, but God will be God to them.

Foreigners - even the ones who don’t come from Abraham can be included, and God will be God to them too.

Explain

Because, God’s love for us is based on his prior promise, not our present performance.

Which is great news if you’re a baby! It’s great news if you have been told ‘you don’t really have anything to offer’. It’s great news if you are over the hill and fit for the scrap heap - according to whoever’s definition.

The whole point of this covenant is to show that while Abraham’s family are going to have this special role as God’s ambassadors to the world, there is a place for everyone in this family.

And yes, that includes those who cannot be circumcised for rather practical reasons. Women will be included in this promise too when it finds its fulfilment in Jesus.

As the apostle Paul will later explain in his letters, this is all about faith. Trusting God. Living as if what he promises is true and can actually happen be he is El-Shaddai, the promise fulfiller.

No matter how strong or weak, hopeful or doubting, confident or terrified we may feel, God love for us is based on his prior promise, not our present performance.

Which is great news when we don’t feel very impressive or powerful.

illustration

There’s a church in the UK called St Barts. It’s an Anglican a bit like ours. It’s congregation has been shrinking and getting older. Like many in the UK, it seems to embody the ‘declining’ church narrative that has been so popular in the news for the past few decades. A casual glance would make you think, yeah the glory days are long gone.

Except that St Barts is changing. In the last year or so, St Barts has been inundated by young professionals, a famous politician, the rock star Nick Cave who I mentioned at Easter, and even - shock horror - an academic historian Tom Holland. And it’s not like St Barts is alone. The author and broadcaster Justin Brierly argues that across the English speaking world there are signs that rumours of Christianity’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Particularly among secular intellectuals. Perhaps the people we thought would be last to come and join God’s family.

And Justin Brierly goes on to say, it may be that these signs are just a fad that will fade. But “as a Christian I believe things that are dead can come back to life. That’s the point of the story after all. As G.K. Chesterton wrote: ‘Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.’

Application

We may wonder where a small, suburban church like Christ Church fits into the grand schemes of El Shaddai, God almighty. We may wonder what difference our small lives in this small place could possibly make to the world. We may even wonder like Sarai, whether God has moved on to bigger and better things. Bigger and better people. Bigger and better churches.

But God’s dealings with Abraham and Sarah remind us that God is committed to us, even if we’re not really sure he needs us. He longs to work through you and me. He longs to use Christ Church to bring people who do not know him into his covenant family. He longs to work through each one of us. Whether that’s as we teach kids the gospel at kids church, or pray with the elderly or the sick in their homes or at Bill McKenzie Gardens, or open the bible with people at Alpha when we do it later this year, or when we begin a conversation about faith with someone at op shop, or when we simply pray in our beds because we are too tired or frail or sad to get up today.

God has gone all in. He will use us.

Transition

Even if we haven’t been comitted to him.

3. God is committed to us even when we haven’t been committed to him

Illustration

This is a picture of the Japanese art of Kintsugi which translates as ‘join with gold’. In Kintsugi, the idea is that you take objects such a broken bowl or a vase and you mix gold or silver or even platinum into the glue and put the pieces back together. The idea is that by highlighting the places it broke with something precious, you make it even more beautiful than before.

State

When God makes this covenant with Abraham, to keep his promises of children, and to be God to Abraham and his descendents forever, he gives Abraham a sign. And in that sign is a reminder of Abraham’s brokeness and God’s faithfulness.

Explain

Because circumcision is something done to the part of the body that Abram used to abuse Hagar.

But in circumcision, God gives Abram a ceremony that symbolically removes that offending part. It forever reminds him and his descendants of the seriousness of his failure, but also of the kindness and faithfulness of a God who is committed to him in spite of his failure.

Of course this points us forward to the new covenant that God has made. Because the cross is likewise the sign forever reminding us of the seriousness of our failure to trust God and all of the brokeness that comes from that. Yet at the same time it is sign that reminds us of the kindness and faithfulness of the God who has gone all in with us, in spite of our failure.

God’s love for us is based on his prior promise, not our present performance.

What this means is that even when we have failed in our commitment to him, he is always there, ready to take us back.

And he transforms our failures into beautiful tokens of his faithfulness

Apply

I spoke last week about parenting. It’s common for parents to feel guilty all the time. We all fail. And many of us worry about failing our children in a way that does permanent damage.

But what if we lived as if God can take our failures and transform them into reminders of his faithfulness?

See when we as parents apologise to our kids for our failures, we are demonstrating what it means to be in God’s covenant. When we say sorry to our children, when we acknolwedge that we stuffed up, and ask for forgiveness, we are inviting God to do some Kintsugi in that relationship. We are living as if he is El-Shaddai, the one who transforms our weaknesses and failures into monuments of his grace.

And of course, this is not just for parenting is it. It applies to all of our relationships, but especially those here at church. If we are people who have been marked with the sign of God’s covenant, the sign of the cross, then we of all people, should be those that believe that El Shaddai can do some Kintsugi with us. We of all people should be those who can acknolwedge our failures to each other, who can ask for forgiveness, who can trust that God can fulfil his promise to make us new people as he made Abram and Sarai new people.