Covenant of Circumcision
Notes
Transcript
Claim: God reaffirms His covenant with Abraham, changing his name to signify a new identity and promising blessing to all nations, thereby establishing a lasting relationship with His people (ultimately through Jesus)
Focus: It’s easy to doubt God’s faithfulness, but we need not, we have a new identity in Christ on the cross - so believe a be baptised (the new covenant sign)
Function: Patiently trust God’s promises by believing and being baptised in Jesus.
1 - Walk Faithfully and be Blameless
1 - Walk Faithfully and be Blameless
Back in chapter 15 we saw God make a covenant with Abram - one of protection, people (descendants as numerous as the stars and a place (a country to dwell in as the people of God.
We’re even told that
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Abram believed God would do what he promised to do - and that gave him a credit before God to be seen as right’ in the eyes of God.
He wasn’t perfect - but his trust in God’s promise - His faith - gave him a credit that could be traded in for being righteous before God.
We know that credit is paid in against the blood of Jesus in the NT.
The one perfect man, the Son of God, who could exchange our faith in God’s promises for the very rightousness of God.
In the mornings we’re going through Romans and this is Paul point in the early chapters - that even people in the OT, like Abram, were not saved through perfection, but through faith in God’s promises.
And God fulfils all his covenant promises in Jesus alone.
So back to Abram, we might now expect him to maybe not be perfect, but to be a pretty good example for us,
God has promised him chidlren, many decendants - and he’s believed God!
But in Chapter 16, as we saw last week - Abram rather fails in his trust in God and makes his own plans to have decendants by sleeping with a servant girl, producing a son named Ishmael.
Many of us have had a similar failures in faith.
We have given our lives to God, believed in his promise of salvation through Jesus alone,
Our faith in God’s pormise is then credited us as righteousness and redeemed for actual rightousness in Christ on the cross.
But we too are often quick to forget His promises,
we turn back to thinking life might be better if we do it our way.
We begin to doubt what we at first believed.
Oftn this will be because of suffering or really desperate times.
I mean, Abram and Sarai must have been pretty desperate.
At the end of the last chapter, 16
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
And the start of chapter 17
When Abram was ninety-nine years old,
13 years have passed and still no child of their own flesh and blood!
Not being able to have children for a married couple is one of the hardest challenges people can face
- especially as one of the core reasons God gives humanity the gift of marriage is to procreate - to have children.
God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.
They are not only a way of obeying and honouring God, but they are also a blessing from God.
Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.
And Not only does Abram and Sarai have this heartache in their lives, but God has specifically promised them decendants - the belssing of Children - well where are they!?
They tried doing it their way 13 years ago and that didn’t go well - where is God in His promises!
No doubt Abram would have been struggling to hold onto his faith in the covenant of God.
His actions have failed God,
His and his wife's bodies seem to have failed,
life is tough, God’s promises seem distant or even unrealistic.
Perhaps we feel a bit like that - for similar or very different reasons.
Perhaps we’ve grown up knowing God and now not sure what we make of his pormises as we approach adult hood.
perhaps we’re more like Sarai and Abram, and in action and or our bodies themselevs may be failing us and or God,
and all these sort of life experiences can cause us to doubt God and HIs promises.
But there is good news for us all:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.
Despite your long suffering,
despite what it may look like,
don’t doubt!.
God - ALMIGHTY is here.
Our job is not to worry, doubt, or wonder at the timings or purposes of God,
but to know he is ALIMIGHT, and so patiently, consitently, put one foot in front of the other,
one day at a time,
to walk before Him and be blameless.
Enoch has done that in Genesis already:
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
MEaning he didn’t face death but was taken to be with God - he was saved.
Noah ahs done this:
This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
And NOah was saved.
Netheir fo these poeple are recorded as being perfectly rightoeus,
but blameless in the sense of trusting God and so walking his ways rather than their own, even as flood water rose around them,
and people ridiculed them,
they kept the faith in God’s promises.
The point - whatever comes our way - walk with God ALMIGHTY!
He cannot and will not fail. Perfection is not required, direction is. Abrahm has failed, but he continues to walk God’s ways,
and as he does so, God motivates and encourages him by reminding him of his promises!
The barren couple - trust the ALL MIGHTY God - be reminded of His promises in jesus and he will deleiver you eternally and joyfully despite your pain now.
The sick or dying person - trust the ALL MIGHTY God - be reminded of His promises in jesus and he will deleiver you eternally and joyfully despite your pain now.
The spiritually backsliding and doubting person -trust the ALL MIGHTY God - be reminded of His promises in jesus and he will deleiver you eternally and joyfully despite your pain now.
And perhaps just as Abraham was at his lowest in faith, God in His mercy reiterates his covenant promises to Him - and expands it somewhat to show even greater blessings to come.
2 - As for God
2 - As for God
‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: you will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.
The amazing thing about God’s promises is that they are so certain,
that we can identify now as what he has promised we will one day be!
Abram means something like ‘exulted Father’. But that’s not enough - God has promised he iwll be the father of a mutlitude - which is what Abraham means!
It’s as if God is saying - look, you may not have fully experinced the fullness of my promise yet - but becasue I have covenented it - promised it, Said it - I the almighty - it is as good as already done.
There is no doubt to have,
no questions to work through - you are the Father of multitudes - so that is now your name!
Sarai also receievs a new name. Both Sarai and Sarah means princess, but Sarai looks back to her nobel, or royal birth as a princess, where as Sarah has a future sense of the nobility of her decendants.
So again, God has promise dyou decendants - so that now is refelctedin your very name and identity.
NOt only do their new identities say something about them and the certainty of God’s promises - but they also say something about the covenenat God makes with their decendants.
Abraham, and Sarah are the parents of all God’s people:
The multitudes and the nobility who belong to God.
Look at the detail that God gives about His covenant that he didn’t give ack in chapter 15:
I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.’
We’re not just talking 1 nation of decendants, but nations, kings of nations will come from you.
And the promise of protection, people and place are not just for Abraham but for all these nations and kings and mulititudes.
God will be Abrahams God and the God of His decendants.
And the land, the place, will not just be for a time - but there will be a place that is not a foreign land, but home, and it wont just be for atime, but it will be and everlasting possession for Abraham and his decendants!
Something very, very big is being promised.
Abraham will eternally possess a land, as will all his descendants.
Kings and nations will be gathered together under Gods protection eternally.
NOw if you know some of the bible then we know in histoiry kings and nations do indeed begin to develop from Abraham and Sarah,
but this eternal inheritance that is to be enjoyed by Abraham as well is pointing to somehting even greater.
But we’ll come back to that shortly.
Now, notice how God promises this to Abraham.
All this is God’s side of the covennat.
v4 even begins:
As for ME.
It is God who promises and gives new identity to his people.
But the convenant is to be responded too by Abraham.
And so next God explains Abrahsms expected respons eto God’s promises of blessing:
3 - As For You
3 - As For You
Bible Passage: Genesis 17
Bible Passage: Genesis 17
Summary: In Genesis 17, God reaffirms His covenant with Abraham, changing his name to signify a new identity and promising him descendants as numerous as the stars, thereby establishing a lasting relationship with His people.
Application: This sermon emphasizes that God is unwavering in keeping His promises, offering hope to believers today who may struggle with doubt or disappointment. It highlights His faithfulness in our lives, encouraging us to trust in His plans and timing.
Teaching: The sermon teaches that God's covenant is not merely historical but is also personal. It illustrates how God transforms lives through His promises, calling us to live in the light of His faithfulness and to share this hope with others.
How this passage could point to Christ: In the broader biblical narrative, God's covenant with Abraham foreshadows His ultimate covenant through Jesus Christ, who fulfills the promise of blessing to all nations. Christ embodies the faithfulness of God and the fulfillment of His promises.
Big Idea: Our God is a God of covenant, whose promises are eternal, and He is faithful to transform our lives and fulfill His plans for us.
