• Promises: Tonight, I am going to speak about a topic that requires some maturity.
• It is a bit embarrassing in one sense, and appeals to our immaturity in another.
• I am not going to ask for much. I just ask you to be as mature as me as we go through this.
• You will notice that that will not be asking too much.
Gen 17:1-2 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."
• From the best we could tell, 13 years of silence.
• Was it 13 years of living with fruit of his bad decision and sin?
• During that 13 years, Ishmael was born and was approaching his teens.
• Every day, Abram remembered the words of God, “Ishmael is not the seed of promise.”
• God does that sometimes. You make a mistake, God says, “OK, we will use this to teach you better.”
• Was it 13 years of test, seeing if Abram would believe during 13 years of silence?
• God does this sometimes. Times of silence “has God forgotten me?”
• Was it 13 years of growth. God had revealed truth to Abram.
• When God reveals truth, sometimes He allows us time to learn it and start living it.
• Slow, daily routine of living out what God has already taught us.
• It takes a while.
• Then God is there, like the old days, Abram may have thought.
• “I am El Shadai.” I am God Almighty. I am the God who is sufficient, who is enough.
• Jer 32:17 'Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
• The then commands him, “walk before me, and be blameless.”
• To me, this confirms, “Abram, do what you have learned to do.”
• Why? “that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly."
• To me, “Do what you have learned so you can go deeper, learn more.”
• I want to get back to this a little later.
Gen 17:3-8 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."
• You have to love Abram’s response to God after 13 years of silence.
• He fell on his face. He responded with humility and gratitude.
• “Listen up, Abram. Here is my covenant with you, that you will be the grandpa of many nations.
• “Here is the sign of the Covenant. I’m changing your name. From Abram to Abraham.”
• Abram = high or exalted (respected) father.
• Abraham (the insertion of the letter AH) = the father of many.
• His is done by adding the constanant that represents God to Abraham’s name.
• “I will make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make you into many nations.
• “I will make you the father of kings, for kings will come from you.
• “This covenant will extend from your life into your children, grandchildren, and their children.
• “How far? It is an everlasting covenant. In other words, it will never end.
• “I will be your God and the God of your offspring.
• “And I will give you this land, all the land of Canaan, forever.
• God laid it all out for Abram, the entire covenant for Israel.
• This began the great covenant of Israel.
• Here, it is almost like a TV salesman. “But wait, there’s more…”
Gen 17:9 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."
• But that’s OK. I was fine with the first part. God, you could have left this off.
• Circumcision is the removal of skin (known as the foreskin) from the very private part of a male.
• Think of this: When God made His covenant with Moses, the sign was a rainbow.
• I am sure Moses and his family stared a long time at the rainbow and said, “That’s a nice touch.”
• I am certain Abraham and all the males in his camp did not have that experience with this sign of the everlasting covenant. (If I snicker here, I admit, I am not that mature.)
• What an unusual mark of the covenant! Let’s face it.
• God as asking Abraham to go where no man had gone before.
• There are a lot of lessons and explanations as to why circumcision, but I want to hit on those I believe are best.
• First of all the covenant was all about God bringing a nation and eventually a Savior through the seed of Abraham.
• Circumcision was a way of expressing total dependence upon God to bring forth a child.
• Also, we know that circumcision is symbolic of the cutting away of the sinfulness of man so that we can live for the Lord.
• Deu 10:12-16 "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
• Romans 2:28-29. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 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.
• God gave them this sign of circumcision to help them remember that God would perform His covenant with the people and that they needed to have their hearts fully devoted to Him.
• God said circumcision was for every Jewish male; son or servant.
• He said it would be performed on the eighth day after birth.
• He said one who is not circumcised will be cut off, which is either expelled from the household or put to death.
• In other words, it was not optional.
Gen 17:15-17 And God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 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."
17 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?"
• God now says He is adding the letter AH to Sarah’s name.
• There is a controversy over what Sarai meant.
• Some commentaries say it meant contentious. Others say it meant “My Princess”.
• Sarah means “Princess”.
• So some preachers teach that through grace we are removed from a contentious position to God to one of royalty with God.
• Other preachers preach that Sarai went from being Abraham’s Princess (My Princess) to everybody’s Princess (Just Princess), because she became the mother of many nations.
• Because of Abraham’s faith, he received a new name.
• He believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
• Because of grace, Sarah received a new name.
• She was simply a benefactor of Abraham’s faith, and received all her promise as a complete gift.
• God began by saying “I will make a new Covenant with you.”
• God has made a different covenant for us. Notice I said for us and not with us.
• We enter into God’s promises by grace through faith.
• Sometimes I find the things that God does as funny.
• One of my characteristics (you may call it a strength or a weakness) is I can see humor in anything.
• Being married to Laura has not helped her in that regard.
• Sometimes we will see something, look at each other, and just start laughing.
• Everybody else in the room is totally lost as to what is funny, but she knows what I am thinking.
• Poor girl.
• If God told me to go get a knife and head out with all the men to circumcise myself and everyone in the group, I would probably not be laughing.
• But Abraham looked at his 99 year old body and considered what God said, and laughed.
• Sometime, after falling down in reverence, he must have gotten up.
• Now he is laughing so hard, he falls to the ground.
• “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?”
• And about the time he gets control of himself , he thinks of his 90 year old Princess.
• “Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?"
• I don’t believe this laughter was like Sarah’s laughter.
• Her laughter was a lack of faith. Abraham’s wasn’t.
• Abraham’s laughter, I believe, was humors amusement at how God chose to work.
• Trans…. Now, let’s wrap this up with some thoughts and applications.
• Look first at what God’s covenant with Abraham included and see what applies to us.
• Finally, I want us to look at our position concerning God’s covenant for us.
I. Abraham’s Covenant.
1. A new walk. It was expected to produce a change in living.
• “walk before me, and be blameless”
• This applies to us in this way. Our salvation should make a difference in how we live.
• Jas 2:17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
• Jas 2:18 But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
2. A new name.
• “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham”
• Someone is identified by their name. Did you know your name is your favorite word?
• I can speak your name softly in a noisy crowd, and you will hear it.
• That’s why some Ryan yell, “Momma, momma, momma, mommy, (and finally) Laura!”
• You know what I am talking about.
• Rev_3:12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
• Isa 43:6 I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,
• Isa 43:7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."
• We are given a new name because when God looks at us, He does not identify us by our sins, mistakes, weakness, failures.
• He sees His Son living in us, and we are identified by Him.
3. A New Inheritance.
• “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.”
• Eph 1:11-14 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
4. A New Sign.
• “Every male among you shall be circumcised.”
• Php 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—
• Col 2:11-12 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.
• Some today equate Baptism with the seal of the Covenant as Circumcision was for the Jews.
• Just as circumcision did not save one, but was a testimony to being saved, Baptism doesn’t save, but is a testimony to our participation in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
• Finally, let’s look at our participation in our Covenant with God.
• We live under a New Covenant.
• Luk_22:20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
• 2Co 3:6 (God) has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
• Our covenant is not between us and God.
• It is between God and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
• Heb 9:15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.
• We are much more like Sarah than we are Abraham. We receive the promises and benefits of the covenant made between two other. For Sarah: God and Abraham. For us: God and His Son.
• Ours is a covenant of Grace. We receive great and precious promises by His covenant with His Father.
