Genesis 17:1-27

Dave, wonderful. Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good morning. Something like that. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. Maybe we need to change this to Burrito and Devotions if I'm going to do it at lunchtime. I hope that you're having a great day. I got to tell you, I'm so thankful for Olivia. She is one who keeps me on track and keeps me on schedule. It is true. Two are better than one. And so it's been somewhat difficult for me to stay on routine.
And so I'm sorry for jumping on late this morning. but this is where every day you and I would get together, have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus and we're at Genesis chapter 17, a great chapter on the sign of the covenant. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the blessing it is to read your word, to come to you, to hear of the things that are that are true and have happened in the past, real history, the ways in which you have interacted with men and women. Lord, we pray that you would teach us this morning. Let us walk in your ways in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Here we go. We are at Genesis chapter 17. Genesis chapter 17, the sign of the covenant. Okay, here we go. Genesis chapter 17, and we'll read all the way down through verse 27.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am Almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also, I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as 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 descendants after you, throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you.
Every male child among you shall be circumcised. and 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 child in your generations. He who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant."
Then God said to Abraham, As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her. Then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples shall be from her.
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? And shall Sarah also, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. Then God said, no, Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac.
I will establish my covenant with him, for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year. Then he finished talking with him and God went up from Abraham.
So Abraham took Ishmael his son, all who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very same 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 same day Abraham was circumcised and his son Ishmael, and all the men of his house born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him.
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? So, A, what is this about? Well, here we find God coming to Abraham again. He came to him in chapter 12 and he made him promises. He came to him again in chapter 15 and he's made him promises. Now we're here in chapter 16 or 17 and God appears to Abraham again and makes him not more promises. but gives him a sign of the promises. He tells him he's come into covenant with him.
This is why we call this the Abrahamic Covenant. God loves to deal with people in covenants. And we're gonna see that time and time again as you read through the Old Testament. And as we get into Exodus, we're gonna see that there's another covenant that's established with Moses. But here in the Abrahamic Covenant, God's made him all the promises. Now God is going to give him a sign and a seal of those promises. And so he gives him the sign, and the sign is circumcision.
Now some people have wondered, oh, this is really weird. Why circumcision? Well, the promise was to make him into a great nation, to give him more numerous offspring than the stars in the sky. And so for him to have his own fleshly parts. We'll use kind of language here to be respectful of this. To do it in his body, in this place, is showing his trust in God that truly what will come from him will only be from God's blessing. But notice Abraham laughs He's like, he has an honest moment with God.
Dude, I'm old. God, what are you talking about? I cannot have a baby. I'm old. And Sarah, my wife, she's old too. She's a decade younger than me, but she's 90 years old. How in the world does a 99-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman have a baby? We're past our prime of life and God says, nope.
He says, what about Ishmael? All right, I've had a kid with Ishmael, right? That whole story with Hagar and Ishmael that we just read about yesterday. But he says, I just had a baby there. Why can't he? And this guy says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not going to be that kid that you try to take the promises into your own hands. But I am going to display my power and my grace to you.
And God gives Abraham a promise. Next year, he's going to show up and they're going to have a baby. And in this whole section, God changes Abram's name. He shows his lordship over Abram and Sarai and he changes their names to Abraham and Sarah. And he tells them that they are going to have a whole family come from them. Even kings would come from their lineage. And so God makes this promise to them and he says, when you have that little boy, you're going to name his name Isaac. I'm going to do this, I'm going to bring this baby about. So.
Abraham believes and he walks in the covenant, he does it. He actually takes all of his servants and is the children who are in his house and everyone. And he circumcises the men. He does it because he believes God's promise. And so he places the sign of the covenant even on Ishmael. He's going to receive a blessing. And so Abraham believes God's promise. Now, we might want to step back here and notice, you might think after this debacle of chapter 16, all this stuff with Sarai and Hagar, God might've come to Abram and said, you know what?
You're a foolish idiot. And I, forget it. My promises are done. Remember what I said in chapter 15 with the whole covenant? We're just gonna, just, I made a mistake. You're not the dude. You're not the one. but God is gracious to Abram see the promise wasn't based on Abraham's goodness or ability to keep the covenant it was God who would keep the covenant now he says walk in it right and here's a sign of it But even the physical sign, I'm going to jump into see calling here in a second. Let's do B. OK, let's do B. I have a few things underlined. I have verse one. I am the Lord Almighty. I am Almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly.
That's what I have in verses one and two underlined. I also have verse, the second half of verse 10, every male child among you shall be circumcised. And verse 11, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. I also have a few other verses underlined, but let me know what would you underline.
Well, what I want to get into here with seek calling is this sign and seal of the covenant that God had given to Abram of circumcision was not meant to just be circumcision of the flesh. Because as we'll find out later and when you get into the prophets they say that it's not the circumcision of the flesh that God was interested but that outward sign and seal was meant to point to the inward reality of the circumcision of their hearts. that they would love God, believe God and walk in His ways, that they would trust in God Almighty and cling to Him and His covenant, to look to Him and His promises, to turn from their wicked ways and to follow after Him. And so the question is for us, do we also cling to God? Jesus used a different analogy for this or a different parable, a different metaphor for this.
Unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. How can you be born again? How can you have your heart of flesh taken out or heart of stone taken out and be given a heart of flesh? How can you be circumcised in your heart? How can you actually find entrance into the kingdom of God, cry out to the Holy Spirit. Cry out to God that you would change your heart, redeem you.
And I pray that you would see the grace of God here. That he is still continuing to be gracious to sinners in his covenant. I pray that you would walk. walk in his ways because of the promises that he has given us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for Jesus Christ. We thank you for the finished promise that a king would come, and indeed the king of kings has come. Lord, we thank you that the same faith that Abraham and Sarah displays is the same faith that we ought to. Lord, and if we're honest with ourselves, we are just as foolish, sinful, worldly minded as Abraham and Sarah.
Lord, we pray that we would By your Spirit, see this example set before us, and take encouragement in your grace. Help us to walk in your ways, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, may God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa 5 to 6 4 0 may God richly bless you this week