Look to the Stars Part 9

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Daniel and the Lion’s Den

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Noah and the ark

I’m God’s friend, so I obey

Recap:

Genesis 17 NIV

1 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. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” 3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 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. 8 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.” 9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” 15 God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” 19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” 22 When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him. 23 On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household, and circumcised them, as God told him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised, 25 and his son Ishmael was thirteen; 26 Abraham and his son Ishmael were both circumcised on that very day. 27 And every male in Abraham’s household, including those born in his household or bought from a foreigner, was circumcised with him.

pray

If you remember we ended last chapter with Abram at 86 years old

Now this chapter opens up with Abram 99 years old

so 13 years have passed between chapter 16 and now chapter 17

In this chapter the Lord appears to Abram and He makes a decree to Abram to

“walk before me faithfully and blameless.”

This is a command for Abram to orient his entire life to experiencing the presence of God, remembering the promises of God, and keeping the commands of God

Westermann, an OT scholar, states, “God orders Abraham to live his life before God in such a way that every single step is made with reference to God and every day experiences him close at hand.”

This is God’s desire for us.

That every single step we make will be with reference to God.

That the entirety of our lives are built on the foundation of who God is and what He would have us do

And that we would also experience Him closely

I think far too often we like to try to keep God at a distance or we feel like He is somewhere up in the clouds managing the things of this earth

And as great and grand as He is, and as many grand things that He has to do and manage, His desire is to still be intricately involved in every detail of our lives.

He is a Father that is ever near to us

And here is what we see as thematic throughout Scripture

radical obedience is the the necessary condition to experience divine covenantal promises.

To experience the promises of God in our lives we must live out His Word.

God says, walk before me faithfully and be blameless and then I will make my covenant between me and you

Abram’s response: worship

Our proper response: worship

Then God begins to unravel more of this covenant with Abram

And here we get to the name change

Abram will be no longer, now we have Abraham

This is cool.

So Ab in Hebrew means father

Ram means to be exalted

So Abram would mean “exalted father.”

More than likely this is a reference to Terah, Abraham’s father, or his ancestry since that was customary

Ham meant crowd

So Abraham would translate to “father of a multitude.”

God does this a few times in Scripture where he takes someones name and changes it.

And it’s always to signify, this is who you once were, but this is who you now are because I say you are

Here’s the cool part, He still does that for us today.

He takes our names and our identities, the things that we think define us and He tells us who we are.

And listen to me, God is the only one with the power and authority to do that

So hey you may be known as one thing before Jesus, but with Jesus, that all changes

When you put your faith in Christ someone may say, “hey isn’t that the drug addict.” and you can say yea that’s who I once was but I am forgiven and full of hope now

Hey isn’t that the real angry guy who always used to blow up when things didn’t go his way. Yea that’s who I once was but I am child of God now.

Hey isn’t that the girl who abused and no one wanted. Yea that’s who I once was but I am loved and chosen now.

God takes who we are in sin and he makes us a new creation in Him

He makes beauty from ashes

He says, you might have been known as Abram the son of Terah but I say that you are Abraham the father of many nations.

Here is something else to remember, God always pulls us out of our past and points us to our future.

God establishes this covenant with Abraham and tells him what He will do and then says, “here is what you will do Abraham.” and we are introduced for the first time to the covenant of circumcision

Now, this may seem a little strange to us but there’s significance here

God tells Abram that from him he is going to greatly increase his numbers and that he will make him the father of many nations

But that this people will be set apart from all other peoples

So God commands Abram to circumcise the organ of procreation

So circumcision will become the outward sign of an inward consecration and this is how it has always been

We see Paul tell the Romans this in chapter 2

Romans 2:28–29 NIV

28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.

We are no longer under the Old Covenant but there is still a circumcision that happens under the New Covenant and it is circumcision of the heart.

It’s this cutting back and cutting away from the old self and making way for the new creation in Christ

But notice that Paul is making the argument here that circumcision, whether OT or NT circumcision was always designed to be accompanied by repentance, faith, and obedience.

That if you don’t have one of them then you don’t have any of them

And it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew and have been circumcised since you were 8

Or if you’ve gone to church your whole life

It doesn’t matter if you said a prayer once when you were little and then nothing changed

If you don’t repent, believe, and obey then you are not a part of the kingdom of God

We then see God promise Sarai a son and changes her name to Sarah

We see a similar thing with her as we did with Abraham

Both names mean princess or speak of nobility

Sarai looks back and speaks to her noble descent

Where Sarah looks ahead to her noble descendants

“kings of people will come from her” in verse 16

Abraham responds to this idea not in joy and celebration but with laughter and questioning.

His desire is still for Ishmael to be the one the covenant runs through

But again we cannot shortcut the kingdom of God

God’s plan all along has been for Sarah to bear a son

And they are to name that son Isaac, which means: he laughs.

Abraham then gathers up his men and obeys the Lord. He, Ishmael, and all the men under Abraham are circumcised

And it say Abraham was 99 years old when this happens

Ishmael was 13

So, what we see is this: Abraham’s immediate response is laughter, but his actions are obedience

Here is what I want to encourage us with this morning and then we will be done

Don’t let one sin turn into another

Here is the reality for all of us this morning

You are going to mess up

You are going to fail and fall and completely miss the mark at times. Wanna know why. Because you are human.

If you read throughout Scripture what you’ll find is that some of God’s most faithful men had some of mans most awful failures

But you know what separates a David from a Saul

David, when he realized his failure, fell on his face in repentance and never let his sin take him to a place of no return

You will sin. You will say something you shouldn’t, think something you shouldn’t, do something you shouldn’t, but don’t let that come habitual in your life.

Don’t let one sin turn into another.

Because sin will build and it will build quickly

And don’t think that because you’ve already had one too many drinks you might as well have another

Don’t let the enemy deceive you into thinking that because you looked at porn yesterday you might as well today

Don’t let your mind play tricks on you that since you’ve already said those things to your spouse that you might as well just go down swinging.

Don’t fall victim to the idea that since you think you ruined your child when they were 2 you might as well give up now that they are 12

Don’t let one sin turn into another

God gives Abraham this powerful beautiful covenant and Abraham’s response? laughter. He laughs at God.

But when it was all said and done what does he do?

He obeys. He does not let one foolish mistake lead to another

Our ability to move away from sin will position us to be close to Christ.

It’s not our ability to be perfect. It’s our ability to, when we are imperfect, to move away from our sin and to the only one who is perfect.

This is what our journey of becoming more like Jesus looks like right?

Moving away from our sinful desires and closer to Jesus

So that every day I wake up, I look a little less like me and a little more like Him.