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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Genesis 17:1-6
Well as we begin chapter 17 You might notice in the bulletin even it says verses 1 through 6 and that's true. We'll make reference but really this morning. We're not going to get far outside of verse 1.
There's just so much packed in.
To verse 1.
But we'll soon make up for that In the rest of the chapter as we'll have to cover a lot of ground in short order. In order to pursue the larger theme of covenant theology in this chapter. It's kind of a holdover from chapter 15 where God establishes his covenant with Abram and Here God doesn't establish a new covenant, but rather elaborates or expands upon the covenant he has made in chapter 15 adds further instruction to it and certainly, there's all the structure of this covenantal language you'll notice even in the verses that God begins with a declaration of who he is and then binds himself to.
This elaboration of the covenant as for me and then as we'll see taking on next week as for you. And then even later on as for Sarah, this is covenantal language. Certainly. This is the heartbeat of the chapter, but there's such a powerful spiritual dynamic in verse 1.
I didn't want to miss it in the time we have together this morning. So let me begin by reading Genesis 17 1 through 6. When Abram was 99 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. This is a simple turn of the page for us. We've jumped out of chapter 16 into chapter 17 and it seems like this is just the next day moving from a Tuesday into a Wednesday.
Of course, that's not the case for Abram and we know from the age statements that that's the case the last time we saw Abram. Just last week. He was blowing out 86 candles on his birthday cake.
He was 86 years old.
According to the last verse of chapter 16 Ishmael was born and Abram was 86 years old. Now Abram is 99. That's 13 years later in between this gap as we turn the page. We're turning past 13 years of a life lived of Ishmael being nursed and then weaned and now he's that awkward Teenager.
Maybe he you know, maybe he's somewhat of a pest around the house. Maybe a Dennis the menace, but he's well beloved. He's beloved certainly of Hagar. Dearly beloved as we see in verse 18 of Abram. Maybe not so beloved of Sarai as we can imagine.
Not everything is well in the home front. And of course the last time we saw Abram we saw his wavering devotion to God. Just like rebellious Adam and all of his passivity. He allowed Sarai to spitefully and cruelly.
Treat Hagar.
He followed the the doubtful scheme. Wondering if this is how he was to secure an heir. And God is answering that in the language of chapter 17 Abram like Adam welcomed corruption into his home into his world into his relationships.
Just like Adam and as far as we could tell as we pointed out last week God only revealed himself to Hagar. We have no record in chapter 16 of God addressing Abram in that whole event. We have no follow-up.
God doesn't go to Hagar and then move to Abram and Sarai and give further instruction. As far as we know God only revealed himself to Hagar. Hagar has returned somehow some sort of erstwhile Reconciliation has taken place.
But Sarai and Abram as the text stands have received no further revelation from God no further encounter with God. That doesn't mean that Abram hasn't been faithful to call upon the name of the Lord. Hasn't been faithful to gather his servants in his household and his his son Ishmael put him on his lap and worship The Lord and call upon his name.
It just means that as far as we can tell God has not revealed himself in some significant way to Abram. Until this verse until 13 years have passed some of you have been Christians for about that time and I trust that along those 13 years of your walk of faith.
You've had encounters with the Lord. What I mean by that is This rather subjective language that we use at times a heart being strangely warm. Some some fresh encounter some new conviction some burden.
That you've had that from time to time. Maybe it's been a long season, but a long season for a Christian might be months God forbid a year but 13 years of this kind of encounter with the Lord. You can wonder how Abram had any faith left at all after 13 years.
Certainly there's a sense in which he had what he wanted. He had a son. From his own body. Maybe God will now work through Ishmael.
Yeah.
He's the product of my doubt and my wife's sin and yeah. It's caused a lot of strain in my marriage and in the home front, but maybe this is what God intended. Maybe this is what God will use. We know of course, this is not what God intended but God doesn't reveal that to be the case until 13 years later.
So for 13 years God allows Abram to be apart from this renewing of his faith this. Renewing of the promise this encounter with God there. There is a renewal that's taking place in chapter 17 a.
An.
Affirmation of the Covenant. My Covenant is with you. I am going to do all that I promised. Even 25 years ago when I called you out of Irv the Chaldeans I have not forgotten. My promise is not slack. I will do all that.
I've committed to you. Remember Abram that I'm the one who passed through the animal parts. I swore as it were by myself I'm the one that's making a covenant with you. You're not making a covenant with me.
And.
Yet here 13 years have passed and there's no sense of of Abrams faith being renewed until chapter 17. Now that's very significant to me and I think it's illustrative of the Christian life. That there's often great seasons great spans of time where God allows doubt to build devotion to waver affections to grow cold.
Commitments to dry up before he comes to his people out of his grace and renews their faith by giving some Revelation some nearness some presence of himself. Now, of course as Christians. We we understand that we draw near to God according to his means of grace.
This is one of the means of grace. We're practicing this morning, isn't it? Gathering together with the Saints with the brethren who are called by his name calling upon his name. Praying to him being prayed for Worshiping him being taught and led in his word.
These are all means of grace that we avail ourselves to. But if you've been a Christian for any length of time You know that you can go through all of these things as empty motions. You can as it were arrange the altar stones.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that God will yet come in fire. And I think we see that in chapter 17 God is not in the business of week by week renewing his people affirming their faith in him. Rather he gives these Precious revelations of himself these these rare encounters with his person By his spirit in such a way that often his people have to trot out live by faith in between.
There's a time before these renewals. There's a time in between that that God is certainly as present as ever by his spirit and yet there's a sense in which subjectively we're not receiving that and Sometimes that feels like wandering sometimes that feels like walking by faith as we're being sanctified that comes more naturally.
We come to expect that we begin to be like the deer that the psalmist speaks of we we pant and thirst and Hunger for that nearness for that newness for that revelation of God. The first point I want to make is this God uses the time before renewal.
As.
Much as he uses the time of renewal. That's the first point. God uses the time before renewal as Much as he uses the time of renewal we should not have a theology that God is only in such encounters as these as Though he's only the God of Abram every 13 years as.
Though God is only at work in Abrams life in an Abrams heart when he encounters him in this powerful way. The way that fills him with joy and awe and as we see he drops on his face because he's encountering the living God.
Who's a consuming fire? But we know God uses the time before the time in between just as much as he uses this. This is how God is working Dynamically in the lives of his people. These 13 years were not wasted.
They illustrated the consequences of serving God by the flesh in Galatians 4. Which we're going to be getting to in a few weeks. Ishmael's a picture of walking with God in the flesh. God's allowing the consequences of this failure to play out over 13 years.
So that Abram is slowly but surely stripped away. He's allowing 13 years of age. So that Sarah is not entering into menopause, but she's well past it and Abram is weak and elderly himself they intensify The dilemma and They also in a way built up Abrams confidence and hope that will now it has to be Ishmael.
If it was going to be anything else it it's too late. Now. It's going to have to be Ishmael or bust. RS candlish a great Scotsman great Scottish commentator said Abram had got the very thing promised.
Or at least something like it and so he almost stopped to look or long for anything more right? He has a son now. It's not through Sarah. I. It's kind of an awkward tension because of that but at least he's got his boy.
He's got his son. He's got a lineage now in such a state how great the need of a revival in the life of Abram and he receives it a Repetition of the original call a renewal of God's covenant you see. And what my point is God is using this time before this renewal as much as he's using the renewal itself.
This is how God visits his people. He's in the dryness even when he is in the stream in the midst of the desert. And you must believe that by faith if you're a Christian. Of course, if you're not a Christian, all you know is dryness and darkness.
But I I reference his people how he renews the faith of his people.
Spiritual renewal.
Begins in these times of weakness deprivation hunger thirst. This is when God revives his people. Historically, this is when God has revived States and colonies and nations in such times of dire need.
When there's been a famine in the land for the Word of God. God moves in a way of renewing his people renewing their faith moving powerfully by his spirit. The Puritans often wrote on this very theme.
You've heard of the the declension in the life of a Christian's soul these deep dry Valleys these rots and so often the Christian thinks in the midst of that kind of darkness. Where is the Lord? We read these Psalms and we relate to them in this way.
Where are you? Where have you gone? I'm left to myself my pillow my empty stomach. I do not eat. I do not sleep. Where are you God? And the point is God is near he's very present and he's at work. Even when he's distant in this way even when the times are dry and difficult and the trial is heavy and the burden is fierce God is at work and.
So God uses the time before renewal as much as he uses the time of renewal. Look at this. This is what God is up to according to Paul and Romans 4 beginning in verse 18. He speaks of Abram who? Contrary to hope in hope believed.
So that he became the father of many nations, right? This is the elaboration of the promise made in chapter 12 according to what was spoken. So shall your descendants be 15. And not being weak in faith.
Boy, he seems pretty weak in faith in chapter 16, didn't he? What does Paul go on to say not being weak in faith? He did not consider his own body. Already dead since he was about a hundred years old you see.
Not being weak in faith, let me put in parentheses for you as a result of being renewed in chapter 17. He did not consider his own body.
Which was already dead.
Not exactly a compliment to the elderly folk. But his body was as good as dead Paul says and the deadness of Sarah's womb. His wife was infertile her whole life and now she's passed menopause. He did not waver at the promise of God the promise elaborated here in chapter 17 through unbelief.
But was Oh interesting strengthened in faith. He was strengthened in faith giving glory to God. Now with verse 20 You could not get the picture that Abram had this resolute faith. When God made that covenant with him in chapter 15, and he was pressing on from strength to strength.
Going from mountaintop to mountaintop. His faith could not waver. All of his neighbors and everyone in his household said this is a man of faith. He's never doubted God every day. He lives by faith. Of course that could not be said of Abram.
We've seen that in chapter 16 everything collapses. He looks eerily like Adam and all of that passivity. He doesn't fear God. He fears his wife and the word of his wife and then he doesn't fear God in his relationship with Hagar though He married her became a husband to her.
He says treat her how you want when she runs off. No one goes after her but the Lord. How weak was his faith at that moment plus 13 years. If you're at that level, what does 13 years of not encountering the Lord God due to that kind of faith?
And so when we read that he was not weak in faith when his body was dead we're reading about the effects of encountering the Living God of being renewed by encountering God of having faith affirmed in the promise of God and That's why he would not waver After this encounter in chapter 17 because he was strengthened.
You see his faith was weak. Until God encounters him renews him and his faith is strengthened. God is at work in the weakening as Much as he is in the strengthening. He allows it for his sovereign purpose.
For 13 years God was stripping away the bodily ability the cold and dead affections of Abram so that he was being reduced to himself reduced to the instability and volatility of his walk so that he was as it were wavering at the promise of God through unbelief so that Upon encountering God and receiving his promise afresh He would be strengthened in his faith and he would no longer waver at the promise.
So the second point then that follows out of this is God uses the time before renewal. To bring us to the end of ourselves. God uses the time before renewal to bring us to the end of ourselves. Abram has to come to the end of himself to the end of his hope for Ishmael.
He almost can't let go let it be with Ishmael. God says no, it'll be according to the child of promise in our Strength. We are limited to what we can accomplish for God. In our arrogance and our boastfulness and our self-reliance.
We are limited in how God will move through us. And so he brings us patiently through these valleys and dry seasons stripping us of that self-reliance. Self-dependence stripping us of that sense that God is at our beckon and call that that we can live as it were completely free of Pursuing him and pursuing his grace according to his means and that all will be well.
He'll always be near the stream will never dry up. He brings us slowly, but surely to an end of that before he renews our faith. God uses the time before renewal to bring us to the end of ourselves. He makes us weak.
Because apart from the Lord there is weakness but with the Lord there is strength and he does not share his glory with another. He has no desire to be the co-pilot in your life. Tear up that bumper sticker take that magnet off the fridge.
He brings his people and then you know, we often talk about this being brought to the end of yourself. We talked about this for the unrepentant right the unbeliever the prodigal. It's a right way to talk.
They have to come to the end of themselves and There that repentance can can turn to God they can turn to God and repentance in faith. They first they have to come to an end of themselves. It's a right way to speak.
It's a right way to speak. It's dangerous for you. If you're an unbeliever here It's dangerous for you to be around Christians because when we're when we're praying for you. Even if we're uninformed we might be praying God bless them.
And the reality is that prayer is being translated in heaven as God break them strip them down. Bring them to the end of themselves. It's dangerous to be prayed for.
If Christians are a little more mature a little more informed we don't pray bless them as much as we pray break them Lord. Show them their foolishness. Show them that they're pursuing death. Show them that the dead end.
Show them the wide path of destruction. Lord break them. Take away anything they're standing on. Any hope they have if it's not in you. So we often Speak in this way use this language of being brought to the end of ourselves in terms of those outside of the Christian life.
Yet to be initiated yet to be brought in converted. What I'm saying is it's proper for us to also think about this in the Christian life that in my walk of sanctification often There's these dynamic seasons where God must bring me to the end of myself.
He must show me the ways that I've been relying on my own efforts putting my hope in my own progress. Completely blowing all the things that he's called me to do ignoring his commands. Getting comfortable with the coldness and and hardness and stubbornness in my life.
He must bring me to an end of that as that happened to you in your Christian walk. In any given season have you come as it were to the end of yourself. Has this been part of how God renews you revives you.
Establishes you afresh and the promises of the gospel. This is what he does. I Remember vividly a few years ago.
Vividly.
Remember exactly where I was laying and I just felt like for. If not a whole season just weeks. I had been off in every respect, you know.
As a.
Husband as a father as A brother as a minister you have to insulate these things, right? It's can be rather difficult to be so insulated. But inside I just felt like I was running on empty going nowhere.
Hardened against God hardened against his will. Distant and all of my affections. And I just remember. You know, of course one of the mercies of being a minister is you're forced to be in his word whether you feel like it.
Or not, I.
Could remember exactly where I was. Well, I I was laying on one of the girls twin beds at the time. And I had this pink butterfly blanket over me. I'm sitting there perched up typing. It's late at night and God just broke my heart.
And I just sat there in the bed laying weeping like a baby. I had come to the end of myself. Who am I? What am I doing? How have I stumbled like this? What where am I going?
It was this.
Realization that even as a Christian Even one who's familiar with with all that God has done and all that God has teachers one who would seek to counsel someone in that state. But even I at times in my walk had to be brought to the end of myself.
Here it is. God here. I am before you. It's taking me a long time Lord to realize it. It's taking me a long time Lord to be honest with myself. So that I can be honest with you. Lord up done a lot of half-hearted prayers and half-hearted repentance and half-hearted motivations.
But here I am. You have brought me to the end of myself. God uses the time before renewal to bring us to the end of ourselves and Notice the way that he does this he He allows us as it were to to walk in this rut of unbelief.
So that in that weakness and in that despair he can show his power and give us belief firm belief Established belief right going back to Romans 4. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief.
Everything we've seen for the past several chapters has been Abram wavering at the promise of God. But he was strengthened in faith giving glory to God. Because God sovereignly interrupted that. By renewing him in that pitiful state of weakness and despair and notice 21 being fully Convinced that what he had promised he was also able to perform.
He believed that God was able to do this. Abram was so brought to the end of himself as an elderly man with a wife. His body dead her womb dead and yet he believes by the faith that God strengthens. He's able to do it.
He's able to bring me a son out of the dead. That's what the writer of Hebrews reasons such was the nature of Abrams faith. God as it were strips away everything to bring us to the end of ourselves to make us honest with where we are Before him so that he can intervene so that he gets the glory.
He shows that he's able to do this. And if we hadn't been brought to the end if we hadn't been brought to that low ebb of our weakness We would still have reasons to think there's still some way forward.
I Still have some control. I Don't have to depend upon God by faith that he alone can do this and now he alone must do this. Because I'm in a pit. And I cannot. Thirteen years ago. I thought I could three years ago.
I thought I could. Three months ago I thought I could but now I cannot. He's brought me an end to myself. Do you notice that in the Gospels when Jesus heals he often you often see the same dynamic don't you I Think of the the one with the flow of blood.
The hemorrhaging woman she was brought to an end of herself. She had spent all of her money. She had sought after everything she was in the crowd. She was so weak so humiliated. So destitute of hope that she didn't even want to go and approach Jesus or have a dialogue with him as many others would that they Would cry out to him.
She just tried to if I could just touch him so weak was her faith. But the weakness of faith was what God used it. God had brought her to an end of herself and that was where she needed to be to be restored and made whole by Christ.
When the two blind men in Matthew 9 We read of them falling after Jesus and crying out son of David have mercy on us. And then he went into the house and the blind men came after him you can picture them stumbling through The threshold feeling their way around still crying out.
They don't know if he's a foot away or in three other rooms. Have mercy on us son of David. Somehow they're ushered before his presence and Jesus says to them. Do you believe I'm able to do this notice it's not like Jesus and oh, yeah sight.
It's almost like Jesus is dodging that isn't it? Interesting. Jesus son of David have mercy. He's kind of walking away walking into a house. They have to keep coming after him. Wouldn't in that process they begin to doubt maybe he has no will to heal us.
Maybe our blindness is is what we deserve. A Lot of sins are prevented when you don't have sight but not all sins. But they get to a place where all they can do is cry out. They've pursued him. They have no idea.
They have reason to think that he might not want to heal them. Otherwise, he would have come they have to go to him and The first thing that Jesus says to them is do you believe I am able? Do you believe I'm able to do it?
That's what we read in Romans 4. Abram had to be brought to the place that he believed. God was able to do it. And it wasn't going to be Ishmael and Hagar. It was going to be as an elderly man with a wife Whose womb was dead and God is able to do it and they said yes, Lord.
And he touched their eyes and he said according to your faith. Let it be. We must be brought to an end of ourselves as Christians.
Continually, I.
Have no doubt that in this room this very morning. There's a brother or sister One beloved of the Lord who's at a place in their walk. They need to be brought to an end of themselves.
They're just not there yet.
We are not ashamed. We know who we have believed. We're persuaded. He's able. He is able we get to that place of weakness where we are not able. He is able he's able to keep it because I lose it I blow it.
I'm not able Lord. Renew me Lord because you are able you can do it. You will do it. God uses these times of weakness these times before renewal. He's at work to communicate his love and his power and his strength and his willingness in the lives of his people.
It's a love that will not let you go and You will not have gratitude you will not have humility before that love unless you've got to this place of weakness and.
Desire and despair.
Robert Hawker says let every exercised meaning anxious believer. Remember this in those dark seasons. Call to mind how the great father of the faithful was exercised. Abram was anxious. Let him remember also these Communications of divine love.
They are precious things. Learn to prize them when you're a new Christian. It's just there. It's just there. The stream is full and flowing. When God begins to work not just in those hilltops, but in the valleys, that's when you learn to prize What Hawker is calling?
Communications of divine love. Those rare gems those sweet seasons. When Christ is very near to you and you are on the precipice of living. Not by faith, but almost by sight. He's so near to you and he only does that to prepare you for the next season of the valley.
The next trial the next burden the next leg of the journey in your walk of faith.
Third point.
Renewal begins.
With the revelation of God himself. So God is at work as much in the time before renewal as in the time of renewal and.
God.
God is using these times before renewal to bring us to an end of ourselves. But then third when that renewal finally comes when we've gotten to that place where we can do nothing else But look up to God and and cry out to him and receive from him.
Renewal always begins with the revelation of God himself. When Abram was 99 years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him I.
Am.
Almighty God. This is the beginning of the covenant structure, but it's so much more than that.
When God.
Reveals himself to his people it provides The immovable foundation for all that they are called to do. We're going to see that as we press forward. But please don't lose sight of this point. Renewal begins with the revelation of God himself.
This is how God revealed himself to Moses. This is how God revealed himself to Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died. This is how God reveals himself to his people. When that renewal comes, you know, it's a renewal of the Lord because he's revealing himself something of his Majesty something of his holiness something of his beauty something of his goodness something of his patience something of his love.
Something of who he is.
That's how God begins to renew the lives of his people. We begin to perceive God and his character.
We see who he is.
We see how he is we see how he has been and what he has called us to we see more of his attributes. More of his character more of his glory and this begins the the season of renewal in the lives of his people now this revelation of God it can.
It could be on a certain aspect of who he is. God is infinite. His attributes are so profound. It may be that God reveals himself in a certain way with a heavy emphasis. Depending on where you are. What you need.
Here clearly what Abram needs and how God prefaces his revelation is he reveals himself as God Almighty. The omnipotent God that's that's as it were the emphasis in God's revelation to Abram. This is the first occurrence in Hebrew of God's divine name El Shaddai.
There's a very interesting history of translation about what possibly lies behind Shaddai. And really we owe it more to Jerome than anyone else in the early church for why Shaddai has been translated as Almighty.
But certainly that's the meaning the imagery behind this word in Hebrew Shaddai would be on the one hand a mountain. So you have that picture of something Mighty who's able to ascend the mountain as it were who's able to move the mountains?
So there's this picture of firmness and might and strength. There's also an image instantly. Interestingly of of a nursing mother or abreast and so there's this nurturing aspect to it. That's part of the etymology of the word, but but here definitely Omnipotence is in view God is all omni potent powerful.
He's Almighty and he's reminding Abram of that because Abram is 99 years old and His wife cannot possibly conceive and he's about to give Abram the assurance that Sarah I will conceive. And so he reveals himself as the God who's able to do it.
I am Almighty Abram. I'm all-powerful. I Spoke the world into being and you don't think I can create a baby in an elderly woman.
Begins the renewal of Abram's faith with a revelation of his power. His utter power and in the scope of Abram's 25 years sojourn of faith you could not say That that power was selective. It was being stored up until God had just enough to finally dispense it.
God is all-power. He always has been always will be all-powerful. God is omnipotent. And yet he allows these 13 years to go by with the same power. Not for any reason but in his sovereign wisdom. He was doing work in the life of Abram and Sarah.
So you cannot say in whatever state you are this morning that God's power is bound. That God's power is limited or restrained. If it's limited or restrained, it's only limited or restrained by his sovereign will.
He exercises Unlimited infinite power as he wills according to his wisdom and his goodness and his purpose. In other words God is revealing something of his sovereignty to Abram something of his sovereignty.
Isn't this instructive to the Christian life? Sometimes We think God is not powerful enough to fully sanctify us from our sins. Young Christians, especially how could I possibly be a Christian? How could I possibly Have been bought by the precious blood of Christ if my life is looking like this.
If I'm capable of living like this acting like this and here it's a reminder. God is all-powerful. He's mighty to save. Could it be in his wise? Sovereignty, but though he is a God who hates sin and in his holiness Judges sin in the lives of his people who are under the refuge of the cross.
He and his wisdom allows them to be brought to the end of themselves so that they find they're all in him. They find their strength not in their resolve not in their resolutions, but in his grace and in his unfailingly good purpose.
Christians often are afraid to affirm the sovereignty of God because they feel that it impinges upon their responsibility. Or that it makes God culpable for their sin. Well, he hates sin. He's holy if he had all that kind of power even over my will and what my life looks like then.
Isn't he somehow responsible for my sin? We would say God forbid may it never be. God is not the author of sin. God is not lenient towards sin. He's a fierce judge of anything that's sinful and yet in the lives of his people.
He's a patient shepherd and a tender gardener and he faithfully prunes and he allows certain things to grow and to be. So that in his wise purpose when he moves in power when he moves to renew.
He gets all of the glory.
It's evident that it was of his hand by his power and not of us. Not of that book. We read not of the blog post that really blessed us not of decisions that we made this year. But of God by his grace even when he uses those things the Bible affirms the absolute sovereignty of God over his creation his utter holiness and Of course at the same time the full Responsibility of human beings as moral agents that are held accountable for their actions.
But human responsibility never trumps God's sovereignty. God's sovereignty is the basis for all that takes place in God's world. Including the 13 years of being brought to an end of yourself. God is able.
We don't consider the possibility of this so often, right. Do we pray with the faith that James encourages us to pray with. We cannot doubt right? We don't want to be wavering. We must believe that God is able.
We've prayed for a tumor. To be dealt with we have certain statistical expectations of what medical professionals are able to do. That's only been reaffirmed through time. Because this is just the way things go.
Does that have any impact on your understanding of the way that God works? Or what he's capable of doing in our own lives of sanctification. We ask questions like How could God allow this? How could God fix this?
How could God turn this around? How could God use somebody like me?
We have to be brought to the place that we realize God is able. God alone is able apart from me. Jesus said you can do nothing. You know, there were a lot of wealthy patrons that were saved in the early church and Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle Than for a wealthy man to enter into the kingdom of God.
And yet there's wealthy men in the kingdom of God. God is in the business of doing things that to our eyes are somewhat natural or expected. But in a spiritual perspective are impossible. Jesus for someone whose heart is given over to wealth.
It's impossible. Try pushing a camel through a needle. That'll be easier than trying to get a wealthy man to follow God and Yet wealthy men follow God. Because God's always in the business of doing the impossible.
When Jesus says that we're able to do greater things. What is he referencing. But that very dynamic of People who are dead and trespass and sin being translated out of that utter darkness into light and life eternally.
Those are the greater things that God is doing in us and through us and all around us. He is El Shaddai. What can you say? But he is El Shaddai.
He's fully capable I.
Love what Arthur pink says about this this title. El Shaddai right the divine name. He says it's blessed to remember that this same divine title is found in the church letters. Come out from among them as Abram did from the Chaldeans.
Be separate says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing as Abram did with Hagar. And I will receive you. I will be a father unto you you will be my sons and daughters. Says the Lord Almighty. Another affirmation, how are you able to do this?
How are you able to come out? How are you able to conduct your life in a way that you touch no unclean thing? How is it possible that you could live your life as a beloved son or daughter of God? Well, it must be that God is Almighty.
It is because our God and Father is the Almighty Hebrew 725 that he's able to save them to the uttermost that come unto him by God. It is because our God is Almighty. That he's able to sympathize with those who are weak and tempted.
It's because our God is Almighty that nothing can separate us from his love. It's because he's Almighty that he can change our vile body and fashion it into something glorious. According to that working whereby he works even to subdue all things to himself.
It's because God is Almighty that he's able to keep us from falling and present us spotless. Before God in the presence of his angels with exceeding joy because God is Almighty. God's sovereignty as it's revealed to Abram shows us the theological truth that God receives all of the glory.
Because God alone is able. God alone is Almighty. We struggle with the doctrine of God's sovereignty because it. It kills the flesh doesn't it? It attacks our pride and if we're being honest we want something of that credit something of that control.
Certainly, I can have a pinky on the reign of my sanctification. God surely there's something that makes me a little bit better than other people. I know there's some Twinkle that I have that's just charming to you and then your divine sovereignty.
It was irresistible. Of course you had to choose me. But when you realize what Jonathan Edwards said you contribute nothing to your salvation. Except the sin which made it necessary. Then you realize that God is not only.
Sovereign.
Almighty but infinitely good.
The fourth.
Point last point although we'll have a few conclusions a few applications. The fourth point and It must be sandwiched together with what I just said is That God's renewal bears the fruit of his grace.
Whenever scripture affirms the utter sovereignty of God and what he must do We don't have to go very far to find the verses that apply to man's responsibility the warnings and the promises thereto. Our salvation, of course depends upon God God Almighty.
He must begin it and he must end it. He must preserve it and he must keep it. All of the links of the chain of salvation Flow out of the power and the grace of God working on behalf of his people. But as soon as you establish that you get these verses like working out your salvation with fear and trembling.
But then you go back to for it's God who's at work in you both to do his goodwill and pleasure. So these things are both affirmed and we we dare not separate them Lest God's sovereignty becomes an excuse for unbelief or unrepentance or God is somehow misconstrued as the author of sin or a heavenly grandfather who winks.
God in.
His grace comes to Abram this faithless pitifully passive man and He affirms all that he had promised to him. There's nothing inherently good about Abram. That is it from God already when God called him out of err of the Chaldeans.
He was a pagan. He was an idol worshiper. He did not know the Lord God. God revealed himself to him then and then throughout this this.
Curvy.
Valleys of failures and stumbles. God remained faithful to Abram. But notice that when God reveals himself when he renews Abrams faith with it comes this call this condition this beckon. Walk before me and be blameless.
So it's all grace all grace. And within that whole Canopy of grace is this call and God will only call what he provides. But the call goes out. Walk before me. This is who I am. I'm Almighty. Look at my grace to you.
Look what I've promised. And in the midst of all of that Abram walked before me. Be blameless. We said that Noah was blameless in his generation. It was said that Enoch walked with God.
Walk before me.
Be blameless. The Hebrew verb here walk it's a it's an interesting stem here. It's the hit by L stem which is reflexive and so we could translate it continually. Walk or live out your whole life. This isn't some temporary test.
This isn't just for a moment in chapter 17. He's saying Abram I'm about to reveal my promise in your life. Things are happening now. I Had work to do in that desert for 13 years, but here I am. And I'm giving you a faith to hold on to to cling to to be nourished by Abram.
Walk before me be blameless. Whenever God renews his people out of that pit out of that desert out of that dryness it comes with this calling. God doesn't even have to say it his people desire it. Serve you Lord.
I want power. I want consistency. I want discipline Lord. I want growth. I want fruit. God is simply putting in our heart what he's calling Abram to do here. When God reveals himself in this powerful way when the Living Lord God comes to Abram.
What is Abram's heart singing, but I want to walk before you. I want to be blameless. Help me Lord. Live out your whole life. A Word about blameless that's kind of scary language to us. Isn't it be blameless or like well, I'll blow that this afternoon.
Blameless, of course.
Has the connotation of something whole something perfect. It could be translated perfect be perfect. Be perfect. Wherefore God is perfect we might say. But of course blameless. Here we have to keep it in line with what we know about God's calling and what the scriptures also say about what it means to be blameless or.
Whole.
Complete that's the language here. Perfect doesn't mean without blemish this word for perfect. It rather means something whole something complete. It's perfect because it's complete. It's not missing anything.
So there's something we could almost say well-rounded about it. It's full. Another gloss would be it's sincere. It's sincere. It's not external. It's not a put-on it's not hypocritical. It's sincere.
Walk before me live in front of me live with my eyes upon you and do it sincerely. Do it sincerely? Acknowledge it in your heart acknowledge your ways before me. Notice that we have two separate commands here walk and be blameless two commands.
Now how we line these two commands up may be important. It could go either way. There's not a lot of indications about which way to take it. It could simply be sequential. Walk before me and be blameless.
So it's just a sequence of commands. There's no significance or. And I think it I'm leaning in this way or it could be understood as consequential. Often in Hebrew when you have two commands. The second is the consequence of the first walk before me and so be blameless.
In other words.
This is how you will live Sincerely Abram by walking before me by living your whole life in my presence with my eyes upon you being conscious of that. When you're in the closet when you're in the basement when you're in the workplace when you're around those difficult people.
You are conscious that your life is being lived before God. This is how you will walk in sincerity. This is how you will be complete Abram. God tells Abram that he must walk before him and be blameless.
Single-hearted. Devoted holy, of course, we recognize there none righteous. No, not one unless they're declared righteous by God on behalf of his son who is crucified for his people. The righteous in other words are those who have this relationship to the Lord they're saved by his grace.
Not by their works lest there's boasting. And so as it was for Abram here so it is for us. Abram believed in the Lord counted it to him as righteousness. So if you're talking about blameless as a moral category a moral standing before God.
We're not unloading this picture of being accepted by God into it. We're not talking about justification here. We're talking about a life of sanctification. That is is sincere. It's sincere. It's whole.
It's not haphazard. It's not piecemeal. It's not on Sundays only it's not in front of certain people but non cert of others. It's it's in the eyes of God. And this is all that God is requiring of Abram.
Commit your way to the Lord. Psalm 37 5. Trust in him. He'll bring it to pass. He'll bring forth your righteousness as the light. That's why Paul could say as a Jew who had to constantly go and cleanse himself Ritually and offer sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem.
He could say of himself in that state as an unbelieving Jew. Philippians 3 6 concerning the righteousness which is in the law.
I was blameless.
I was blameless. In other words, I was sincere when I sinned. I went through what God prescribed for my sin. I went to the temple. I did sacrifice. I ritually cleansed myself. I was blameless according to the righteousness of the law.
Then I Encountered the risen Lord Jesus and I began to understand a little bit more about the righteousness which is in the law. After Christ revealed himself to Paul. He knew that his whole walk was all of grace.
He went from. I was blameless to. I am the chief of sinners. The chief of sinners. You've never never met a bigger sinner than me. I Pursued to the death people who called on Jesus first Corinthians 1510 but by the grace of God I Am what I am and his grace to me was not in vain.
I Worked harder than all of you see God's sovereignty human responsibility. I worked harder than all of them. Yes. But it was not I it was the grace of God with me. So some concluding applications just three the first is we must walk before God.
You must walk before God. What does the the preacher say in Ecclesiastes as the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments. Reverence him and follow him. That's the conclusion of all of life.
That's the sum. It's just a different way of saying the same thing walk before God and be blameless. Live your life in front of him in sincerity and wholeness. How are you going to do that the same way that God is doing it with Abram.
He's working in those times of dryness. So that when that renewal comes his strength his faith will be strengthened and he'll go on from strength to strength. These valleys in between God does not waste.
Friend you are living your life before God whether you want to or not. I Say you must walk before God. That's not optional. You are always walking before God. Your life is always open before his sight.
We must all give account for deeds done in the body whether for good or ill our life is open before God. Abrams life is as open as it ever was in chapter 17 verse 1. So why does God say it then? Walk before me as though Abram wasn't of course he would he's saying it for Abrams sake.
My whole life is open before God. Whether I realize it or not and God says Be conscious of that. Walk before me in a way that your heart is sincere. Your life is whole every aspect of your life is lived in my presence.
What's called quorum deo you fan of RC Sproul? He always loved that phrase before the face of God. Quorum deo. Walking before God does not mean. Running ahead of where God is in your life does not mean hanging back afraid of what he'll find.
Means your whole life is open before him and you live that way. You live consciously in what Calvin called the theater of God, which is this life this world? You live as though God is a spectator not just externally but internally in the secret desires and thoughts of your heart to live this way is The entrance into understanding what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart.
Soul.
Mind and strength. You cannot do that. If you're not consciously living your life before God your whole walk before God. And if you're to do that if you're to walk before God secondly, you must walk before God by faith.
You must walk before God by faith. This is the only way to walk before God believing what he says trusting in what he reveals. Taking his warnings to heart and walking accordingly taking his promises to heart and walking accordingly.
Walking according to the hope that lies before you the joy that is set in your way. This is nothing less than the life of sanctification in a Christian. You become more conscious of Your own ways before God things that are unseemly.
Season by season God is pressing more and revealing more not only of himself, but more of you to yourself. You've got to trust him. You have to walk by faith not by sight. Not by the sight of being dead in body not in the sight of having a wife.
Whose womb is dead? But by faith and what he said. Are you walking by faith that God is faithful to provide a way of escape when you're tempted? Are you walking by faith that God will not put on your life on your shoulders more than you're capable of bearing?
Are you walking by faith that that God has a purpose in the trial in the thorn in the affliction that you're facing? This is what it means to walk before him. Nothing is random. Nothing that happens to me is unplanned.
There's not a rogue molecule in the universe. And so I walk by faith. Even if that faith takes me down a 13-year Valley I walk by faith. Even if that revival has been a long time coming and I have yet to encounter the nourishing presence of God I walk by faith.
I don't walk by sight. And walk by feeling or fuzzies walk by faith in the Word of God. RS candlish again. To walk before God is to live in his sight under his inspection. To realize at all times that his presence and his providence are there.
To feel his eyes that never sleep upon us. To walk this way before God is impossible. Unless there's redeeming love on his part. Which is apprehended by faith on our part. I I cannot live under the gaze of God.
Unless that gaze is one of love because of Christ by faith. This is why you can only walk before God by faith. It would be a terror to walk in the sight of God unless you do so by faith in Christ. And so walking by faith is a means of drawing closer to Christ being more hidden in Christ.
Seeing more of the the fruit and the virtue and the grace of Christ in your life. You can't walk before God with a whole heart in Insincerity if your life is pockmarked with distrust and doubt. The people who walk before God in sincerity and integrity are people who trust God despite themselves.
Despite their circumstances despite the season despite the relationships despite the hindrances. They trust in what God has reviewed. If we've learned nothing from the life of Abram so far we should have learned that We look to him we walk before him by faith and in this glorious Transformation that Paul describes in 2nd Corinthians 3 we become like the one we're looking to the one.
We're exercising faith toward we look to him who's immovable and we become immovable. We look to him who does not change and we're a lot more stable in the next season. We have not understood the meaning of faith unless we become like him whom we believe.
Third and the last point. So the first point first application we must walk before God. Secondly we must walk before God by faith. Third and last we must walk before God by faith in his almighty.
Faithfulness.
We must walk before God by faith in his almighty faithfulness. Wherever my faith is resting upon my ambitions my energy my capability my Capacity what I've learned what I know what I've done who I have.
I'm not walking by faith in his almighty faithfulness. What that suggests to me is That you cannot begin to walk before God unless it's flowing out of this revelation of God. Notice that the order is not Walk before me.
Be blameless. I'm God Almighty. It's the other way around. It must always be the other way around. Do better work harder.
Strive.
How are you still messing up like this? You call yourself a believer. I'm God Almighty. No, it's always the other way around. I'm God Almighty. Walk before me. I'm the God of all power. I'm the God of grace.
I'm the God whose purposes fail. Never. I'm the God who renews his mercy every morning in light of that walk before me. In light of who I am walk before me in light of how I'm revealing myself to you walk before me.
We walk by faith in his almighty faithfulness. The walk of faith is not clambering after some residue of what we know about God. It's the outflow of what we know about God. And so we press into his word.
We press forward and persevere in prayer. We want to know more of him so that we can walk in his ways. Walk by faith in his faithfulness. The greater God is in your affections the greater he is to your mind.
The more likely you'll be able to walk in sincerity before him the more likely you'll be conscious of him in all of your ways and endeavors. If God is small God is distant if God is inconsistent if you don't begin with God the Almighty.
You will not walk before him. If you do it will be splotchy at best. It'll be because you've heard me and I'm all exercise and I'm losing my voice and that's good enough to get you through Sunset tonight and then live the rest of the week in a slothful sinful state but to have this view of God the Almighty.
Faithful in his purpose sure in his promise the God of all hope if I'm To live before this God. I will do it if my whole life and all of its warts all of its All of its garbage is open before this God.
Through Christ I can do it. Sincerely with my whole heart. Isn't that what God is showing to Abram? When he says I am Almighty God.
Be blameless. You must walk before God by faith in his almighty.
Spurgeon says. Whatever ill-taught divines may do. In other words people who don't know what they're talking about. The Holy Spirit never never puts the fruit before the root. He never places the pinnacle where the foundation should be.
Begin with God's all-sufficiency and Then go on to this holy fellowship of obedience and then aim at this scriptural perfection. Everything else flows out of this. You walk before God by faith in his almighty Faithfulness.
Notice. Lastly before we come to a close. Within these verses in verse 5. What. Really. In all these verses we have a number of I will statements and this is even before God launches into all that he's going to elaborate.
But he says I will I will I will. Repeatedly. This is what I shall do. This is what I'm going to do. Except in verse 5 It's a different verb verbal tense.
It's a perfect.
Which means it's something completed. It's an action that has been completed. I Have made you. That's a perfect tense verb, that's a that's a completed action. So you have I will I will I will in the future.
I'm going to I'm going to. And then verse 5 is. I have made you a father of many nations. What. No you haven't I have one son by Hagar. God uses this language of Completed action even though it has yet to pass.
Why.
Because so sure so certain is the purpose of God that everything he will do is as though it has already been done. God is so powerful so sure so unchanging in his purpose that Everything he commits to do it's as though it's already done.
It's as good as done. You might as well speak of it in the past tense. Which is exactly what Paul does in Romans 8 When he's talking about your salvation in Christ, it's all perfect verbs.
Moreover.
Those that he predestinated He also called that's a perfect verb. Those who he called he justified so far. We're tracking. Yep. Yep. He must have predestined me if he called me and he did call me. I remember all those years ago in the back of the Camry outside that parking lot and He did justify me because I turned to him in repentance and faith when he gave me a new heart to believe in him.
And so I'm definitely justified. And to those whom he justified he glorified. Oh Wait a second. I actually haven't been glorified yet Paul. You practically have it's as good as done. So sure is God's commitment.
So definite is his promise that Paul can speak of the whole purpose of God's salvation in your life as a completed action. So walk before him this Almighty Faithful God who speaks of what he's going to do in your life as though it's already been done.
Walk before this God blamelessly sincerely.
Spurgeon he says.
Child of God you've been saying. I don't see how God's gonna fulfill this promise in my life.
What do you have to do with that?
Walk before God and be sincere. He'll take care of what he's promised. There's a beautiful simplicity here. I'm doing all of this Abram. You just walk before me sincerely. That's my encouragement to you brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Say look at my life. Look at what I've.
Dropped.
Look at what I'm gonna have to confess as I'm about to take the the emblems of his broken body and poured out blood. And every week I do it. And in the back of my mind in the back of my heart I feel as though I'll do it again between now and next Sunday.
And how many Sundays will there be before I don't even care and then I mindlessly Eating destruction to myself. Am I even a Christian at this point? How is God going to fulfill his promise of salvation in my life if my life looks like this.
See the marvelous wisdom of God here, what is that to you? Have you covenanted to do this work. Have you passed through the animal parts, I'm sorry. Was it you that made this promise? No, it was me. So walk before me sincerely I'll fulfill what I've accomplished.
I'll attend to all that. I've said I will do Abrams. God is our God. Walk before God by faith in his almighty.
Let's pray father. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your purpose your promise. It is sure and we are not. You are changeless and we are changing you are firm where we're Unstable or your good where we're corrupt True or we're hypocritical White where we're darkness love where we're hardness patience where we're stubbornness Mercy where we're cruelty Nearness where we're distance Sympathy where we're indifference.
Thank you for who you are. Thank you for what you've promised. Thank you that you can speak of our salvation in the past tense Because of Christ. Thank you for sending him because we could not save ourselves.
Thank you for still saving us because we cannot save ourselves. Lord, thank you that you've given us a heart to know That you are able and everything that we've committed to you. You will keep against that day that coming day.
I pray for any in this room Lord. Are they in that 13-year ditch? Might they encounter you the Living Lord God might you renew their faith? Strengthen it make it sure show the work that you've patiently done in this pruning in this oppression over this Distant season and I pray if there's one who's not in the valley because they haven't even begun a walk of faith.
They don't know you they're strangers to your grace. Do what they cannot do Lord. They're not sick. They're not troubled. They're dead and trespassing sin and only you can give them life. So give them life breathe on them spirit of God this we ask in your son's name.
Amen.