The Gospel in Genesis: Our Unchanging God Who Changes Us - Genesis 17

BIntroduction

Genesis 17 (ESV)

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, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And 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 of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”

When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

It has now been another 13 years from the account in the last chapter. We are now sitting at 24 years since God has called Abram out of Ur, and still there is no child other than the child born by Hagar.

But God wants Abram to know that in spite of the long years of waiting, God has not changed or gone back on His promise. God is unchanging, and even Abram’s and Sarai’s sin in how they treated Hagar did not change God’s mind about them. God was still going to fulfill His promise.

But God’s unchanging character and grace does lead to change for us. While God never changes, He is always in the process of changing His people.

God’s Unchanging Grace Changes Our Identity

Names were not just labels, they described character and purpose

In Changing their names, God is giving them a new identity and purpose

Abram - Abraham

The father of many to the father of a multitude of nations

Bible teacher Jen Wilkin points out, Imagine being a man who was called “father of many” for so long. And when people ask how many kids he has, imagine the shame in how he would have to answer.

But to add insult to injury, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham which means father of a multitude of nations.

Abram, now Abraham, would have thought, I’d be happy with just one. In fact, he asks why Ishmael, who is a physical son to him now, cannot be the fulfillment of the promise.

Sarai - Sarah

Sarai and Sarah both mean “princess.”

But Sarai was probably taken from the name of a female consort to the moon god that Abram and his family had worshiped back in Ur before God called to him.

Sarai was still being identified by her old life in the pagan religion.

God was giving her a new name that would break the identity with the moon religion and now identify her with the One True God. She was no longer named after a consort to the false moon god, she was now a “princess” within the covenant God was establishing with Abram.

Sarah is “princess” daughter of the King, the only true God and mother to all the kings that God will bring forth from her own body, not Hagar’s.

Isaac - Laughter

God is automatically giving the purpose and identity of Abraham’s and Sarah’s new son even before he is conceived.

God promises the birth of a son by Sarah who is currently 89 years old.

Abraham’s response to God is laughter.

When Christ saves us, He gives us a new identity and purpose

We are no longer identified by our sin, by our professions, by our desires

The problem with finding in our identities in anything other than Christ is that we will always find a time when we can’t fulfill that identity.

If I find my identity simply as a pastor, there will come a time when I cannot pastor anymore and then I will see no value in myself.

If I find my identity in my athletic abilities, what happens when my body grows old and tired and I cannot perform like I once was able?

Maybe I find my identity in idols like money, health, or sexuality. There will be a day when all those things will fade. What happens when those things are gone?

The danger of finding our identity in these other things is that there will be a day when those things die and are gone.

However, We are identified by Christ

John 1:11–12 (ESV)

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

We are no longer children of the devil and enemies of God. We have been adopted into a new family with a new name.

Just as God gave Abraham and Sarah a new name, a new identity, and a new purpose that would go with them into eternity, so God is giving us a new identity and purpose.

Our identity is not found in things that will one day pass away.

We might have jobs and professions that we fulfill right now.

But our identity is in Christ and in His ultimate purpose to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever!

God’s Unchanging Grace Changes Our Hearts

A New Sign of the Covenant - Circumcision

God has made a Covenant to bless the seed of Abraham

God is marking His people by marking the vehicle of the seed

This act would cut the extra skin from the male reproductive organ. This sign would remind the men and their wives of God’s continued faithfulness to fulfill the promise to send the Seed who would crush the head of the serpent.

This mark is a sign of separation

Immorality was rampant among the Canaanite people who Abram lived among

This mark is a sign of cleansing. The skin that is being cut off is skin that is hard to keep clean and can be the cause of infection.

God wants to cut out sin from His people’s lives just as the skin is being cut off.

This mark would be to remind God’s people that they were to be different and separated

Every time a man would cleanse himself and every time a married couple would come together in intimacy, they would see the sign and be reminded of the covenant.

It would also serve as a mark of conviction if a man were to commit adultery with a woman not his wife.

This Bloody Sign would point to the Bloody Fulfillment of this Covenant

This would have been a very bloody process

This would have reminded the people that blood would be required to bring them into the new and better covenant

This sign points to a greater and bloodier sign that produces the cleanliness God wants to give to us

Just as blood was shed in the cutting of the skin, so our salvation would be secured by the shedding of blood of the Promised Seed Himself as He died upon the cross. Blood was necessary for the forgiveness of sin because the wages of sin is death.

This sign of circumcision would point forward to the blood that would one day be shed to purchase our salvation and to crush the head of the serpent.

An Outward Sign that Points to an Inward Change

Circumcision was never meant to be the means of salvation.

God saved Abram long before he experienced circumcision.

Circumcision was merely the outward sign of what God was doing in the heart.

Just as the skin was cut off, so sin is being cut out of the heart.

The Jews lost sight of this fact and thought it was merely the outward act that God wanted. But God wanted the outward sign to remind them of what should be happening in the heart.

Deuteronomy 30:6 (ESV)

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

God is in the process of removing our sin and rebellion from the heart so we can truly love God from the heart and turn away from the lesser desires we have for this world.

The Pain of Circumcision

points us to The Pain of Sanctification

This was a very painful sign that God has established with Abraham and his descendants.

Just as circumcision was an outward sign pointing to an inward reality, so the pain of circumcision is pointing us to the fact that being purified and transformed into the image of Christ is a painful process as we cut out our sin.

God does not promise us freedom from pain and hardship

In fact, He promises that we will endure suffering as we are being identified with Christ.

David Helm - The only right we are given in Scripture is the right to experience suffering as we are being transformed into the image of Christ.

Peter says this same thing:

1 Peter 1:6–7 (ESV)

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The failure to circumcise was a sign of rejection of what God was doing for them.

Children 8 days old were brought into this covenant. The parents, by this act, would have been committing to train and teach their children to love the Lord.

The failure to do so would be a rejection of the covenant God had established with Abraham. The circumcision was not salvation itself, but it did represent the receiving of God’s gracious covenant in their lives.

It was a willing act to physically identify themselves with what God was doing spiritually. This is why a failure to do so would have meant being cut off from the people. Without a desire to cut off the sin in the heart, they would be cut off themselves.

Marriage -

The outward sign is the ring

Simply wearing a ring does not mean you are married

However, you wear a ring because you want to be identified as belonging to your spouse.

A refusal to wear the ring shows there is something wrong with your relationship.

The ring is a public declaration to the world that you are not available for the special intimate relationship that you have with your spouse alone.

Baptism -

We have an outward sign that we celebrate when someone receives the death and resurrection of Christ as their only means of salvation. We know that we receive God’s grace in Christ by faith in His finished work.

However, there is an outward sign that we are commanded to follow that does not add to or take away from our salvation, but is a step of obedience as we follow Christ.

Just as the people were called to circumcise the flesh to identify themselves with what God was doing for them,

so we are called to walk through the waters of baptism as we choose to identify ourselves with Christ and with His people.

Baptism often had a cost associated with it too.

For many of us, the cost is maybe getting in front of other people.

But for Christians in other areas, they are putting their lives on the line because when they get baptized, they are so identifying with Christ they might lose their lives because of the persecution that takes place around them.

Baptism itself does not save. But it does demonstrate a desire to let the church and others know that we are followers of Christ. It is like a man and his wife who wear their rings or make it known in some way that they now belong to Christ.

God’s Unchanging Grace Changes Our Response

God does not simply save us so we can continue in life with our fire insurance

When God changes our identity and our hearts, God then also changes our response and our behaviors.

Abraham -

Because of God’s work of salvation in his heart, we see Abraham respond in faith and obedience to God’s commands.

He does not see God’s commands as restrictive, but as both a beautiful and a painful and costly blessing in his life.

But the value of His relationship with God was well worth the cost incurred in the obedience.

This is not a legalistic obedience on Abraham’s part. It is a joyful obedience because of the love and grace of God he has experienced.

While we are not saved by our behavior, our behavior does reflect the change that has taken place in our hearts.

Abraham’s response of obedience was the fruit of what God was doing by changing his heart and his identity and purpose.

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

We are not saved by works. No one has ever been saved by his works. Abraham was saved by grace through faith alone.

But his faith was not acting alone. His faith produced the fruit of obedience to God’s Word.

Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

God has prepared good works for us to do in Christ Jesus. Abraham is demonstrating his faith by following in obedience.

Our salvation is demonstrated by the fruit of obedience that is produced in our lives.

Does this mean that we will always get it right? No.

Even Abraham is still going to mess up and miss it even going forward.

But there is a desire in Abraham to live in obedience to God’s commands because of Abraham’s love for the Lord.

God is working at changing Abraham’s heart and it is showing itself in the fruit of obedience.

The question we have to ask is, are we seeing the fruit of obedience in our own lives?

Are we seeing a change in what we love? Do we love the world less than we did before Christ? Do we love God more than we do the things of this world?

Or do we “believe” in Christ simply so we can go on to love the things of this world and to live however we please?

We must always examine ourselves to see how we are doing. Do we repent and confess our sin when we go against God’s Word? Or do we simply go on in our sin not thinking it a big deal even though God has clearly spoken against our sin?

But do not simply trust yourself to examine yourself. We can sometimes be blind to the sin in our lives.

Find someone you trust that you know loves God and knows His Word and that will love you enough to gently but firmly call out sin they see in your life. If our desire is to love Christ with all our heart mind soul and strength, then we should welcome the voice of someone else to help us stay on track or to get back on track when we stumble and fall.

And ultimately, pray and seek God’s grace to help produce within you a heart that longs to obey.

We know that God loves us all Just as We Are.

But we also know that God loves us too much to leave us just as we are.

God wants to change us because He loves us. He wants to make us more like Himself because of His deep and abiding love for us.

Do not reject the love of God by refusing to turn away from the love of sin in your life.