Now as we transition into our scripture reading and that will transition into us to this song for our offer toward the Eric Priest actually wrote that goes along with Leo's worships with Leo Sermon. And so we'll turn our attention now to Genesis, the book of Genesis chapter 17 and the Old Testament verses 1 through 14. That's Genesis chapter 17 beginning in verse 1 and going through verse 14. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 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. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you 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 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 and God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you, every male among you shall be circumcised. 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 throughout your generations whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. 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 and everlasting covenant. 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. The word of the Lord.
The choice at his right hand or say it's wisdom, fame and power should make my shield and time, you by him say, I shall eagles wings up, born to heaven as his face. I shall his power adores of his grace and time. All triumph and host is thanks to God, son, ghost. May I join the Almighty and majesty of the cow of us. Let us ask for God's help as we look into his word together.
Lord, we do thank you that you are indeed the God of truth and love, the God of Abram be praise, and how we do pray. Holy Spirit, that you would now invade the thoughts and attitudes of our heart that we might understand your covenant, given to Abraham, given to us in Christ, that we might rely on you, that we might respond to you as you would have us to do, and that we might rest in you. And we thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we are having a great weekend. Our family is because we've got my parents in town from El Paso, and we're so thankful you can mob them after the service up here. But growing up in El Paso, which is about 5,000 miles from everything out there, it is in the state of Texas. A lot of people don't know that in Houston. But living in El Paso, in the summer time, one of the things that my parents were so kind to do is to give us escapes, and we would head west. It's actually closer to San Diego from El Paso than to come to Houston, if you can believe that. And so we would head out on this long journey. And as a little child, we would be maybe 20 minutes outside of El Paso, and I'd be saying, can we see the ocean yet? Can we see the ocean? And you can imagine my parents' eyes roll back thinking, oh my goodness, what are we going to do? And they were so fair for bearing and came up with a really creative idea along the way. If you've ever made that journey down I-10 towards California, you might know about the thing. Anybody know about the thing? This is a very bizarre creative marketing device of a company. They post these very large billboards all along I-10. And the first one pops up, not too long after you've left El Paso, just in these large letters, the thing with a question mark. And my parents would draw attention to it. And it was inigmatic and mysterious and wonder what this pointed to. And it would build anticipation. There were probably 50 or more of these billboards trying out over a 700 mile span of distance. And so we would be so curious as to what happened. And it got our mind more importantly off of, could we see the ocean yet? And so we at least got near California. Well, finally, after many, many hours, here comes the thing. And it was nothing. It was a total disappointment. It was a completely boring store, just like any other store on the side of the road. And so that disillusionment said it. Now, we would forget about it probably, at least I would over the course of the many months to the next year. And we could play this game all over again. But you know, I think that that's sort of a rhythm to our life, isn't it? How we have these great hopes and dreams. There's things that we anticipate out there on the horizon. Boy, if I can just get through school, then I'm going to get a great job. And if I can get that great job, well, I'm going to really have life inside of me. And then if I can find just the right person and get married and we can have, you know, so on and so forth, our hopes and dreams are cast out there on the horizon, building anticipation. And like so many of those things in life, once you finally arrive, you say, is that all there is to it? Where's all the hope? Where's all the dream? And for a lot of us, that means disillusionment is said in. But we have the sense that there's not much in life we can really depend upon, not much that we can rely on, that things aren't constant. There's disappointments everywhere in every sphere of life. And now one of the secular answers, a primary secular answer for this is, well, you're right. You can't depend on anything or anyone out there. So what do you do? You depend on the one inside. You depend on yourself. You are self-reliant, right? And so a lot of us put all our eggs in that basket until all those eggs crack. And we realize there's disappointment there as well, that we fail, that we cannot build and manufacture enough reality to life to sustain ourselves. And so there's disappointment there. And for some of you, you're right there this morning. You feel like you've been there for years on end. A sense of disillusionment failure in a relationship and a career path, maybe in sort of interior paths in your own heart and soul, habits that are just totally defeating and discouraging to you. You've relied on everything out there and then you relied on everything in here and there's nowhere else to go. That's exactly where Abraham was when we left him last. If you've been with us in this story that we're going through called People of Promise and the life of the great patriarch Abraham, the last time we looked at Abraham, we saw that Abraham was freaking out over things not coming to reality. He had these promises looming out there in the horizon, the things of God out there, the promises of God. But they weren't getting any closer. And so he took matters into his own hands and decided there wasn't going to probably be an heir through his wife, Sarah. So let's take this alternative path and he went through his wife's servant Heygar and thought this would be a means to accomplish the end that God had appointed, helping God out so to speak. And that as he soon realized, messed everything up. He left everything a mess and now had to deal with the sense of failure. Now the end of chapter 16 is unfortunate chapter division here between 16 and 17. He is the last verse of chapter 16 tells us that Abraham was 86 years old when he made a mess of things. First verse of chapter 17, he's now 99 years old. What's the point for 13 years? Abraham waited. Things weren't being realized. What in the world could he depend on? And to make it worse, he'd so mess things up that he wouldn't blame God if God didn't follow through on his promises at this point. And many of you again feel perhaps some shades of that same reality in your own life. What are you supposed to do? What can you depend on anymore in this world? What's a constant? What can you do? Where are you to go? And that's where this chapter gives us just a spectacular answer because this chapter introduces to us a reaffirmation of things God had already said. God had given to Abraham his covenant promises and said, be a man of promise and from you will come a people of promise, right? God bless every nation of the world through you. But time elapsed and so now you have a reaffirmation or a confirmation of that same covenant expanded beyond anything he could ever imagine here in Genesis 17. And he's saying many things in here but three things I want you to see this morning to help us get at what we can depend on and rely on in life. The first thing is God says to Abraham into us by extension through his covenant here in Genesis 17 rely on me alone, rely on me alone. Secondly, respond to me and finally rest in me. All right, so let's look at that. What is it that God confirms in his covenant to Abraham here in Genesis 17? The first thing is to rely on me alone. Now what he's given to Abraham in this covenant is in some ways a contract. I mean, you can think of this as the Magna Carta of Magna Carta. This is the Magna Carta Declaration of Independence and every other great document thrown in magnified to the Instagram. But if you only leave the covenant given to Abraham there it's legal in its feel and you miss the heart and soul of it because the covenant name of God is used here at the outset to reaffirm the deep steadfast love of the Lord that fills every aspect of this covenant. And see, that's the point from first to last Christianity is a relationship. God says to Abraham, I will be your God and you will be my people. That's covenant language, a shorthand that you see throughout the Bible to say, I'm committed to you. I love you. The most profound, unimaginable relationship in all the universe is given to us through God's covenant. And it's a relationship that gives a legacy to Abraham. He says in verse six that I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you. There is a legacy there. It's not simply a contract of love but there is a deep relationship that's given, but there is a deep legacy that's communicated there as well. Jesus comes on the scene and says, I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly. Now, how many people feel that Christianity is confining, that if you really get into religion it's going to hamper your lifestyle. It's going to confine you and hold you back. A lot of people feel that way and I think a lot of us in this room feel that way if we're honest. But what the Bible is teaching is no, you're limiting yourself when you keep yourself distant from the God of grace and his covenant. Basing your life upon it. If you want your life in the other hand to flourish, if you want to be a fruitful person, if you want to realize all that God has intended for you, then you have to live in and through his covenant that he's given to Abraham and by extension to us as well. Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. If you want to bear fruit, you've got to be connected. You've got to be in me vitally and from that true life and fulfillment will come forth. Now, one of the applications for this sermon is for those who are being confirmed this morning. But in a sense, every time we come to worship, every time we reorder our lives around the gospel, we're being reconfirmed. We're saying, okay, I've been out there living in hope and anticipation of all these billboards, all these things out there. And I forgot once again that they prove to be nothing. I need to reorder my life around the one who is the fulfillment, who is life, who will bring the only meaning in hope and life that's out there. Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? Do you believe into that? Allow God to confirm that this morning in a powerful way to you. Notice the Eugene Peterson quote that's in the front of your order of worship there. Again, very appropriate for young people, but really for all of us. The reason why our childhoods were one enthusiasm after another was that they hadn't yet found an organizing center of our lives and a goal that would demand our all and our best. The Christian faith is the discovery of that center in the righteous God. Christian discipleship is a decision to walk in his way steadily and firmly and then finding that the way integrates all our interests, passions, and gifts, our human needs and our eternal aspiration. It's the way of life we were created for. Listen, Paul in Galatians chapter 3, one of the great 316 verses says that these promises that God gave in this chapter to Abraham were not simply to Abraham, but to his offspring. And what Paul does in a very creative literary way is say, not just to the offspring in general, but to the one offspring to come to Jesus Christ and any of us who would trust in Christ who would rely on Jesus over against all the things out there and the things in here, anyone who would rely on Jesus alone. Those promises given to Abraham are yours, but what the Bible shows us is that what God gave to Abraham in Genesis 12 was expanded in Genesis 15 and expanded more in Genesis 17, and that is the way of the gospel, my friends, that Christianity far from limiting our lives maximizes them as we lay down our life as we trust and rely on Christ. We see that fruitfulness, life, hope, meaning, all of that emerges in the legacy and love given to us in Christ. And it's there for a long period of time, you see longevity here in this covenant that's given. This isn't something that's going to pass away like a mirage and the horizon is not going to be something that's empty. Once you finally get there, this is something of permanence, permanence in reality. And so, friends, will they disappoint you? Absolutely. Will milestones in life, career milestones, will they disappoint you? Yes. Nothing in this life has the stability, has the meat and fiber to it to give you the kind and quality of life that your heart longs for. So the first thing that God says to Abraham and to us, in Genesis 17 is rely on me alone. I am your anchor. I am your rock. Everything else will fade away, will prove fragile. Trust in me. And secondly, when you begin to grapple with that, and all of us in this room were at various places and in the continuum on that, grappling with that, but when you're really beginning to grapple with that, you say there's a response that should come. If I am called to really rely on him, then that provokes a response in me. For some of you, it may feel this morning like this heavenly alarm clock has gone off and you've been awoken out of your, awakened out of your sleep and slumber and there is a clarity now. The fog is beginning to clear and you're saying, well, yeah, I've been wasting my life on all these other things. God is confirming in you this day where life is found and that provokes, should provoke a radical fundamental reorientation in your life. Do you see that right at the beginning of this passage where he says, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. He couldn't have been more drastic in a, and sweeping in a small statement there. Walk before me and be perfect. Now, really the Hebrew word for blameless here is talking about an integrity of life. It doesn't mean necessarily flawless, but it does mean a life like in the Peterson quote that is centered around that one true God. In light of who I am, let your mind be blown and your life radically reoriented, reformatted. So in God's covenant, what he's doing is he's saying, you're no longer a nobody. You're no longer a person who lives for entertainment, or fashion, or pleasure, or career, or accomplishments. We are now the people of God. We are to be holy, which means set apart, distinct. And as the scripture affirms in both Old and New Testament, as God himself is holy, utterly unique and distinct, his people, his image bears, likewise, should be as well. And this is a problem when we think of God in this radical way. Because in our culture, we tend to minimize who God is. Don't we? We tend to adopt an attitude of interviewing God to be our personal deity. And you'll hear people saying we think of ourselves. I like to think of God as the giant teddy bear in the sky. Or I like to think of God as this kindly grandfather. Or if you tend to be a person that is just, you beat up on yourself, I tend to think of God or or I imagine God to be frowning down upon me, always shaking his head, the fierce warlord type figure. Let's see, look, regardless of what your natural, your intuitive thoughts are about God, the Bible says there is a revelation here that God is given to us clearly in the Bible and that we need to be reformatted in our orientation so that we see Him as He really is, as the covenant God of love and legacy and longevity, the God of great power and might and mercy and grace at the same time so that when you come into this relationship, in responding, you are recognizing there's a whole new beginning here. I am not just an improved person, I'm a new person in Christ by relying on Him alone and that means I have a whole new allegiance approach. I remember hearing a story about Queen Elizabeth when she was a little girl way back and she and her sister were doing the things that little royal princesses do. You know, the same thing, I'm sure all the little girls and boys in this room, dude, would you just be in kids and the queen mother came up to them abruptly as they left the palace one day, imagine that life, and I got in their face and said children, remember, royal children, royal manners, they were different, they were holy in the sense of being very different from the rest of the world and that should be reflected in the way they carried themselves. Now Christianity says never leave it at the external behavior level, always allow it to go to the heart deep in the heart and that's why I love Abram's response because God tells him walk before me and be blameless and then what does it say in verse three Abram's response was, Abram fell down on his face. I mean, I just think that's kind of funny. Walk before me and Abram falls down but it's a picture of that heart response, isn't it? Abram was on fire now in the depths of his soul with adoration, with worship. That's really what we're talking about, a life that is generated from the heart outward that recognizes this grand and majestic and gracious being that allows the formatting of our brain to be redesigned according to the revelation of his word to see him as he is, rely on him and respond to him. And God gives two signs here to help understand how this response should take place in our life. The one is that he changes Abram's name. Now symbolic here of the blessing certainly because Abram, as we said in another sermon, the word Abram means little daddy and Abraham means big daddy. I mean, you're going from being just the father of a family and one nation to the father of a multitude of nations. Kings are going to come from you. But there's also the edge to here, the sense in which God was saying you must be radically different. How? Because for anyone to be able to come along and change your name implies authority, control. I mean, if I just came up to you and said, all right, Amy, I'm going to now call you Susan. I mean, you say, well, that's insane. You don't have the right to do that. There's no privilege there. You can do that, but you're being absurd, right? God comes along without getting any consultation from anyone else and changes his name. And later in the chapter, changes Sarah's name to Sarah. Why? Every time now for the rest of their lives, whenever they heard their name, Abram, Sarah, it would bring them back to the reality that they were a new person. And they must respond with new loves, new allegiances, a new obedience to this great one. And then the symbol of circumcision, which admittedly it's a little embarrassing to talk about, but God gives a lot of space in his word to talk about circumcision. And the picture here is very poignant because remember what was meant by the word holy to be cut off, separate, distinct. That's exactly what is visualized, symbolized in circumcision. It was a cutting off of the four skin so that the people of God would always remember that they must be totally distinct and different. It was also, practically speaking, very, very painful, which means that following this one through God, as Jesus would say, is very difficult. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. The cross we wear it around our necks, which I love, that's wonderful. But you know what, it's a sign of execution, to sign of great pain and sacrifice. The Christian life is one of suffering. It means being cut off, distinct, and there in that laying down our life. Do we find life? Only when we give up trying to find the thing out there, and in there do we find him who is the measure and meaning of life. All right, so you rely on God alone, is what God's saying to us in the covenant, respond to me appropriately, based on who I really am. And then if you get to this point and you're like me, you're saying, well, okay, but isn't this just a roundabout way of getting back to the same old thing that's in every religion, every philosophy, every approach to life, that the monkey is on my back? I've now got to perform. I'm the circus animal. I have to perform and jump through the hoops. And then God will be pleased with me. God will really love me if I fill in the blank. Go to church, stop doing these things over here, and so on and so forth. But if we leave it there, we miss what is at the core of the covenant. Now, how is it that God can be faithful to us even when we're unfaithful? Because even in this passage in that 14th verse, very sobering words where he says, any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off. See that symbolism again, cut off from his people. He's broken my covenant. Think about it. Who in here would say they had not broken the covenant? Who in here would like to say they've been totally obedient to God? They've never failed him. See, we can't say that. And it's like, God, you've brought me back to square one. I've arrived at the thing and now I can't even enjoy it. Because like Abram, who waited for 13 years, I now live with the reality that I've made a mess of things. So how can I rest? I can't rest. But God says somehow, rest in me. How so? You know how so. Because circumcision, just using circumcision here in this passage, is a sign. It was never intended to be a destination in and of itself. Signs are there to point us beyond them to another reality. I mean, the prophets themselves would harrain the Hebrew people throughout the Old Testament saying, don't be content with this external sign circumcise what? Your hearts make it reality. And so we keep going in this bloody trail as all the other bloody signs in the Old Testament are taking us to the ultimate destination, to the event of events that change not only the world but my world and your world, the crucifixion. Paul saw it this way in Colossians chapter 2. He referred to this as the circumcision. And he was talking to a bunch of Gentiles and you can imagine the embarrassment or awkwardness because he said, all of you have been circumcised and they're going, I don't think so. We really haven't. He said, not with a circumcision of the flesh with the circumcision of Christ what the sign was pointing to. Why is that so important? How is it that you and I who have broken the covenant of God can avoid being cut off as verse 14 says? It's because as the prophet Isaiah would tell us in chapter 53, there is one son of Abraham who would come and perfectly uphold the covenant and nevertheless be cut off from the land of the living, that our transgressions would rest upon him so that we resting in him might not be cut off but enjoy the freedom of the sons of Abraham and the sons and daughters of God. There's a German folklore about a wicked man who had the desire to court and marry a beautiful saintly woman and so he put a mask on of a saint and he courted this woman and won her affection and married her. Years later after they've been married for many, many years one of his cast-off girlfriends from years earlier realized the facade and tried to expose him before his beloved wife and as he took the mask off to his surprise and to everyone's surprise, it was the face of a saint. It's not a perfect story but it's a picture of our own experience that we like Abraham, if we're resting in ourself, if we're relying on ourself, we will end up going to that thing and finding nothing but when we rest on Christ, when we rely on him, when we respond to him in love for all that he's done for us, his transforming grace in his covenant is it work in us, conforming us more and more to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ who was cut off for us that we might be united to the one true God and that forevermore he would look at you in the face with the pleasure that he has in his son and say, I am your God, you are my people. Enter now into the land of promise where there is no more weeping or crying or pain or death live in the light of my love. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.