The Follower's Mark

Text: Genesis 17:1-14

Central Idea of the Text: Abraham’s covenant is affirmed by God and confirmed in Abraham’s life by the covenant sign: circumcision.

Proposition: Following God in obedience means we joyfully receive his covenant sign for us: Baptism!

Purpose: All listeners should be challenged to be public and unambiguous in the faith: believe Jesus and be baptized in his name!

Now a couple weeks ago, we talked about weddings and the trappings that surround them. And when you think about the things that surround weddings and engagement, there are some big and pricey activities and items that usually follow: The dress, the flowers, the cake, the catering, the venue, the photographer, the decorations, the invitations, the POSTAGE. A wedding can get expensive if you want it to. But there is one thing that takes a spot of preeminence on the factor of whether you will get married or not, and it’s the thing that gets seen first when you announce an engagement, and its the thing that makes a special appearance at the ceremony to put a bow on everything. I am, of course, talking about the ring.

It’s the one item that a single person might look for when sizing up another person from across the room: “Do they have a ring on? Nope? Well I best be getting myself over there for a conversation!” It’s the one item that Beyonce was singing about when she told the single ladies “If they liked it then they should have put a ring on it.” Best be looking to get engaged to that fine young man. And it’s a item that if it goes AWOL, and doesn’t show up after 8 years of dating, don’t be surprised if she doesn’t show up on the day your actually thought about maybe getting around to marrying her.

The ring for us is the most famous of covenant signs. If you see these rings on my wife and I, they mean we are in covenant, we belong to each other. There is no intention or plan to ever break that, and each time I see or handle my ring, I think of her (and I think she thinks of me as well). Signs help remind us of the promises and blessings of being in covenant.

Today’s text focuses on covenant and more specifically on signs of the covenant. Is all this covenant talk just weird and ancient irrelevant news? Hardly. Let’s look at the first half of today’s text, found in: Genesis 17:1-14. I will start us by reading verses 1-8.

Genesis 17:1–8 ESV

1 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, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 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. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 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. 8 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.”

This is the Word of the Lord for his church this morning.

Please pray with me: Father, you are our God and we your people. You make covenant with us in all your promise, and you call us to the point of decision, the pledge and sign, to follow you. Lord, help us to see covenant more clearly. Let us be a people who clearly and publicly follow you with our whole hearts. Give us clarity and conviction to follow whole heartedly. We pray in Jesus’ name amen.

So. For this morning’s text we’ve got to get the context and timeline right. If you missed last week, we were enlightened to the story of Abram and Sarai and Sarai’s maidservant Hagar. At the time, 86 year old Abram and 76 year old barren and childless Sarai decided to disregard God’s plan and their own covenant, and they tried to make their own way by Abram having a child through Hagar. As we saw, there was consequence after consequence to show that this was THEIR WAY and not GOD’S way. Ishmael was born to Hagar, a child to be sure, but not the child of God’s plan, blessing or intention.

This week’s text opens by saying that Abram was 99 years old when God appeared to him. Doing the math, that means we have a 13 year gap from when Ishmael was born, until the next time God speaks to him. Does that mean that God had was giving him the silent treatment. Well, I can’t speak for why God speaks when, so I will just say maybe. But it does say something that there was nothing else to report in this gap. No new kids with Hagar. No more of her leaving his house. It seems as though Abram and Sarai have simply realized they made this mess, they need to own it. So they have been for 13 years, but at the same time realizing that God’s made a promise that he’s not brought into its true fulfillment yet. Think there was any wondering or doubt about God in this gap? Perhaps. But the ready ears of Abram now hear the voice of the Lord.

What does he hear now from God? Covenant. Covenant. Covenant. It’s like a barrage all over this chapter. We see it used 13 times in the chapter over all, but now God uses the modifier “My”. My Covenant appears 9 times in this chapter. It is a covenant that is personal to God and to Abram. God owns it. God, as we noted in chapter 15 has sworn himself that he will keep and fulfill this covenant by passing between the pieces. Now he comes out the gate and says to Abram: “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.” As Abram has let down his guard and lived by sin and not God’s promises, now God almighty reminds him of the way. For the lesser to walk before the greater in covenant was common, and it reminded the lesser that they would own their very lives to the greater. God says: Abram, I need you to be set apart. I need you to be holy. You must be markedly different than these other idol worshipping nations. Not like the Egyptians. No more of that. So now God will give Abram a new name. His old name Abram? It meant exalted father. But his new name Abraham? Now he is the father of a multitude! God’s promise that he will not only be a father … but then the father of a nations … and then the father of kings and many nations? The promises just keep getting better! But still Abraham now wonders: I like the promises God! But what about just giving me just one kid in the way you would have for this blessing.

God’s about to answer that in full, but first, Abraham must walk before God blamelessly. God’s going to ask him to do something that he must obey. Just like he left Ur. Just like he listened for God’s voice, walked thru the lamb, worshipped and tithed. God now says: Obey me in this command and ceremony of this covenant. Take on this covenant sign. And that is what we are about to see here. The covenant sign taking. Like a ring, it’s meant to be a visual reminder of walking in holiness, faith in God, knowing you are his in a tangible, real way. Like wearing a wedding ring.

Now I pause here to say this before we get into the rest of the text. WE HAVE TO BUILD A BRIDGE FROM THE SIGN THAT WE ARE READING IN TODAYS REMAINING TEXT. The studious word for this we use is hermeneutics. Because if we didn’t, we would be absolutely missing the point. We are not Abraham. And an understanding from then to now, of this covenant sign and OUR covenant require us to bridge build. So let’s take a look at the first ...

The Covenant Sign Then // Circumcision

So accompanying God’s promise to give this land to Abram and all of his descendants, God calls Abram for the following sign. [v 9-14]

Genesis 17:9–14 ESV

9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 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, 13 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. 14 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.”

As God had walked between the pieces, so now God, in calling Abraham to walk before him and be blameless says: “Take this on, you and your sons: be circumcised.” Now, I want to be both clear and concise here because I need to be, and I’m going to be neither graphic under WHAT circumcision is. We can file this under: “If you know, you know.” And kids, if you ask your mom or dad what circumcision is, and they say: “I’ll tell you when you’re older”, they are right, so please listen to them. But to do this? It is to come under the covenant and marked as one of Abraham’s descendants, the people of faith, the chosen of Israel.

Now again for the adults in the room, and without saying too much, we may ask why this? Why circumcision? Seems like an extreme measure to show your devotion and that you are putting your name and body on the dotted line of a covenant between God and man. To answer that, I’d simply ask you to remember the sin that Abraham was engaged in back in chapter 16. Abram’s body was used to operate outside of God’s commands between Sarai and Hagar. God, now in this command says, you Abraham are going to need to act in demonstrating your repentance and your seriousness about walking in my ways by coming thru this covenant sign. Are you in covenant with me Abraham, God says? Then obey this command. Take up the knife and be circumcised. Be set apart.

What we see then in this request is that not just Abraham but all in the household and all in the nation would be set apart for the Lord. It is here commanded in verse 12 that “every 8 day old male” of Abraham’s descendants would enter into this covenant as well. For each male that would take this mark upon their body, It was to be a mark of obedience; not simply to the traditions of Abraham, but to the commands of God. And this was a serious thing! Note the words of verse 14: “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.” To be uncircumcised as a male was to be out of alignment with the Lord and out of this covenant with God’s people. It was a big deal. And so we note down in verses 22-27 of this same chapter, that which is requested of Abraham, Ishmael and every other male of the household, they will do it. Abraham heard the word of the Lord, and those men of his household heard the word of the Lord thru Abraham. That is a true leader and man of faith, that he would bring his entire household into this and convince them all to take this difficult and painful step.

So .… it’s time to get the knife out this morning, right? Line all the guys up and off we go? Wrong. And thank you Lord that by your grace and mercy I do not have to do this today. This is certainly a scripture we can learn from, but it is NOT for us to obey. In order to help you understand that, we are going to need to build a bridge from then until now. The Lord drops a very large hint that a big change is coming with regard to covenant and sign. Something new and something different. Check out the words of the prophet Jeremiah as he implies that there is something that will look very different coming in this new covenant:

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

31 “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, 32 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. 33 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. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

How will this new covenant differ? Well, it will differ in many ways, because there will be a messiah who comes. There will be a once for all sacrifice. And there will be a way made so that God’s people may have the promised and indwelling Holy Spirit in EVERY believer. And the mark of that covenant that comes will not be displayed on the flesh, it will be reflected in an action that displays what happens when the heart is cut. Remember when Peter preached in Acts 2:37: The people’s reaction when they heard there was a savior who they had killed thru their sin? THEY WERE CUT TO THE HEART.

So what about that covenant sign of circumcision? Will this people need to go thru that process? The emphatic answer is NO. Even during the time of Abraham, Moses, and Israel in the promised land, the entire point of circumcision was to remind the people of the inner change on a person, not just the outward procedure. The outward ceremony of a circumcision of the body was to lead to a circumcision of the heart:

Deuteronomy 30:6 “6 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.”

Jeremiah 4:4 “4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.””

Romans 2:29 “29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

Acts 7:51 “51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”

And it was both affirmed by the apostles, and agreed upon in Acts 15 by the Jerusalem council that circumcision was not to be the covenant sign by which the people of this new covenant would be marked and known. They would be known by a covenant sign of the NEW Covenant, one that would be the standard of EVERY believer in the book of ACTS. That turns our attention to God’s covenant sign for his people here and now:

The Covenant Sign Now // Baptism

I am not stretching to make this bridge from then to now and to make this connection. If God is going to make covenant with us, then he is going to call us into an obedience in the sign of the Covenant in Baptism. The Book of Acts makes it clear again and again. As people respond to Jesus: Young and old, men and women, Jew and Gentile … they all step into the water of baptism.

Acts 2:37–38 “37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 2:41 “41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

Acts 22:16 “16 And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’”

Acts 19:5 “5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Acts 8:12 “12 But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”

Again and again, when there is a response and a calling into new covenant, there is a baptism, where a person who believes is placed under the water as this sign of the covenant. We should note that this is not a stretch to say that this baptism has replaced the necessity for circumcision. It certainly has, and Paul makes that connection in Colossians 2:11-13:

Colossians 2:11–13 ESV

11 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, 12 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. 13 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,

Paul says that you who are Christians, people of this covenant, you have received a circumcision … “Buried with Jesus in Baptism.” To commit to Christ in baptism is to put off the old self, the flesh. In that way, it is like a surgery, a removal of that which is past, to receive the promise of what is coming. Because we trust in Christ we understand that he was cut, and he was scarred and he was bloodied to make a way for us. Jesus was cut off at the cross from God’s people, becoming sin for them as he hung there. Christ was cut off from Israel, for the sake of the true Israel, so that all of the true Israel, following in the Faith of our good Father Abraham would be saved. And I tell you this in all truth: Abraham in his time, because he was a man of Faith who would walk before the Lord, would be circumcised. In the same way, Abraham, were he here and now responding to God as a man of faith desiring to walk before the Lord, He would not hesitate to be baptized and to call his household to be baptized.

Ok, some would then ask, is this baptism and this circumcision equally interchangeable and equivalent? Is this an apples to apples comparison. No. The New Testament and the teaching of Christ and apostles make clear the shift that is happening from Old Covenant to New. There are some differences.

Baptism Crosses Boundaries of Gender: Whereas the circumcision was only and exclusively for men and boys, the call for baptism in the name of Jesus goes out to all, both men and women: Galatians 3:27–28 “27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The gates to Kingdom commitment have been opened to all in the baptism invitation.

Baptism Crosses Boundaries of Bloodlines: Whereas the circumcision was for Abraham and his descendants, the Kingdom doors have been burst open to follow Christ, no matter your family tree: 1 Corinthians 12:13 “13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” That one body brings all bloodlines back to God under the blood of Jesus Christ.

Baptism Crosses Boundaries of Nations: Whereas the circumcision of Abraham’s time was for the nation and household of Abraham and Israel, within their nation and boundaries, the Kingdom invitation goes past border and into nations: Matthew 28:18–20 “18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” That Kingdom of Christ is spreading to all nations, tribes and tongues all over the earth.

Baptism is given to Believers: Whereas the circumcision of Abraham’s time was given to infant males on the 8th day, the baptism of this new covenant is the pronouncement of that which is happening in a believing and professing heart. 1 Peter 3:21 “21 Baptism, which corresponds to [the waters of Noah’s flood], now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” The pledge of kingdom faith is expressed and pledged in baptism. It’s the starting point for believing faith, not the finish line.

Baptism is a Burial & Resurrection w/ Christ: Whereas the circumcision of the flesh affected the small portion of the bodies of some, the baptism in being immersed in the water gives the full meaning of Christ’s promise to the believer. Romans 6:4–5 “4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The Kingdom covenant promises are for those who are united

Summary:

Every covenant has a sign. The old one had an old mark that served it’s purpose, but only applied to a certain gender, race, nation. But the new covenant and the promise of God in the new covenant of Christ blows the doors open to ALL. All who desire to be a part of Christ’s saving work ought to believe God’s words, turn from their sin, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

I don’t think there is a Sunday that goes by that I don’t mention this covenant sign, this baptism. And yet, we don’t have baptisms all the time. We do have them occasionally, but I as your pastor certainly perceive that some people (many people) view baptism as a barrier point when it comes to following Christ both in our community and in joining with the faithful here at our church. Why do many get held up here and walk away from a covenant with God and salvation in Jesus?

Some might not come because of Fear. A fear of what others might think if you get labeled a Jesus Freak by wearing his name as a Christian. Fear of rejection by family, by friends or by workplace. Fear of an unknown of what might happen if your life was fully abandoned to Christ. Sometimes just being in front of people. But those people, this church, they would love to see you and affirm you in Christ … love to welcome you into the body.

Some might not respond because of Doubt. You have disbelief and doubts that God’s promises could actually be for you. But I can tell you, as could many others here, if Jesus could love a sinner like me, he could love a sinner like you. If God could love sinners like Abraham, like David, like Peter, if he could forgive their sin and wash them clean, he could certainly do the same for you.

Some might not respond because of Questions. Because of differing backgrounds, doubts and confusion, many people let those questions linger rather than stepping forward to seek answers and opening up the Bible for themselves to see what God would have them do in calling them into covenant.

And some might not respond in baptism because they see it only as a duty, a drudgery, something we HAVE TO DO. No friends, WE Get to do this. Baptism is our joy. It’s my joy as a pastor to lead you thru that water, raising you up to walk in new life. It’s the joy of myself or other disciples to bring you under that water burying the old man and raising the new. And it is joy to know that you are walking before your Lord, following in the water that Jesus put himself under as your Lord and example. We used to sing a song to celebrate at baptism: “Now I belong to Jesus. Jesus belongs to me. Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity.”

There is joy in coming to Jesus. We call all who hear, who have not taken that step. Come to the water! Here is the inviting water Jesus has placed before us. Why should you not be baptized today, or some day soon?