Genesis 17 The Covenant Sign

I think it's going. All right, we're gonna get started because we can't encourage bad behavior.

The people who are not here yet, they're late, and if we just wait for them, then they'll be later the next week, and we can't do that.

So John, could you open us in a word of prayer, and then we'll get right into the word. Lord, I do want to say with appreciation the power of your word, the power of your love, the power of your

Holy Spirit, the power of fellowship, being able to come together, and how you have prepared

Jeff with a message for us today. We know, Lord, that you are true to your word, and as we see in Genesis 17, the covenants and the response to covenants, speak to our hearts,

I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, what do the International Church of Christ, the

Mormons, and the Jehovah's Witnesses all have in common with regard to baptism?

Huh. Tough question. They all are part of the

Restorationist movement, which believes that originally, baptism was connected with salvation, that you weren't saved until you were baptized.

The idea comes from Acts 2 .38 primarily, but also other passages calling on the name of the

Lord. There is even a teaching within the International Church of Christ that unless you believe that you're being saved while calling on the

Lord, while being baptized, then even baptism that you have doesn't count as valid baptism.

So the teaching is that salvation is conferred through baptism, and it's an errant teaching.

We know that it's errant because from the very beginning, the sign of covenant is separate from and subsequent to salvation.

In Genesis chapter 15, turn with me there, verse six, Genesis 15 .6,

one of the most crucial, important verses to study from the life of Abraham, because Paul makes much of it in both

Romans chapter four and in Galatians three and four. It says in Genesis 15 .6,

and he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

The great doctrine of justification by faith, that a person is declared righteous by faith or through faith, comes not from Paul's own mind, but from God himself, and he taught this way back here in Genesis 15 .6.

Now, question, when is Abraham given the sign of circumcision, before or after Genesis 15?

After Genesis 15, in Genesis chapter 17. It was a guess?

It was no guess, Candy knows that. So we're gonna pick up today in Genesis 17, and I wanted to just really underscore this point, that the sign of circumcision comes after justification by faith.

The moment Abraham put his trust in the promise, the promise, which is looking forward to the gospel,

Abraham didn't understand Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead, but he did understand the promise of an offspring, and to have offspring like the stars of the sky.

This promise, Abraham believed, and God credited faith as righteousness, which is how it is in the new covenant as well, that when you have faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ, now this faith is not just an intellectual ascent, there is an element of trust, of turning from sin.

The reformers talked about the different elements of faith, notitia, that you take note, you have a mental construct that you understand what's happening.

And then there was assentia, assentia was to give your assent to that, that you're fully agreeing in mind with what's being said.

But then thirdly, fiducia, fiducia refers to trust, that you have put your personal faith, your personal trust, you're relying on, so it's a matter of not just an intellectual ascent, but the mind, the will, the emotions, the whole being, trusting in God and in the promise.

Does that make sense? So, but the moment you have that genuine faith, according to Romans 4, 5, and here

Genesis 15, 6, that faith is counted as righteousness.

Subsequent to that, we have the sign of the covenant, which is what we get to in Genesis 17. So, Rick, would you be our first reader?

What's that? Yes, the three reformers elements of faith that they described are noticia,

N -O -T -I -C -I -A, it's like to take note of something, to note, and then assentia, to give assent,

A -S -S -E -N -S -I -A, assentia, I think it is, unless there's a

T, it could be assentia. I'm going with the key words. Okay, yeah, the English, not the Latin. Yeah, to take note, to give assent, to trust.

And there was a correspondence in their thinking between the mind, the emotions, the will. Mind, emotions, will.

The idea, though, is it's just the whole being. It's not just this intellectual, even the demons believe, and they shudder, but they don't trust in the promise.

Faith is more than just an intellectual assent. That's the big idea. Okay, yes. Circumcision is second -handed, though.

Yes, yes. That's the parent's decision on behalf of their son.

Right, and we'll look, as we consider that point from Colossians, we'll talk about the

Presbyterian idea that there's a correspondence, that even in baptism, you should baptize babies because you're identifying them with the covenant, that's their argument.

I don't think it holds water, but more baptistic at that point. But I don't think that's a heretical idea.

What's crucial, though, is to know that its justification is by faith. It's not by a work. It's not by a sign.

It's not by circumcision or by baptism. You put your faith in Christ and him alone for the justification of a sinner.

Okay, so Rick, both the Abrahamic covenant sign of circumcision, which is second -hand, and the new covenant sign of baptism symbolize the removal of sin.

And belonging to God. So think of it. Circumcision is a cutting away of the flesh.

And a particular member of the flesh that would be prone towards sin and associated with sexual immorality.

Whenever you have vice lists in the New Testament, there is always, and usually leading with, sexual sins.

And circumcision refers to the cutting away of the sinful nature. There's a symbolism in that.

But baptism is a better sign. For one, circumcision is only with the male.

Not with the female. But secondly, baptism is a better picture itself of the washing away, the removal of sin for men and women alike in the new covenant.

So each covenant, Abrahamic and new, has a particular sign associated with it.

But just as the new is a better covenant, the book of Hebrews talks about this idea of better. The new covenant is a better covenant.

So the sign is also a better sign. So we're gonna consider how they're the same and how they're different.

Continuities and discontinuities between the two. But let's just go through Genesis 17. And Rick, you've got us with the first eight verses, please.

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. So you recognize the words here as something we've already heard. The first iteration came in Genesis 12, one to three, the promise given of a land and blessing to the nations, a seed promise.

You have also repeated a few verse later in Genesis 12, seven and then in Genesis 15, one to five, this same promise was given and Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.

So now what you're having is another iteration of the same. It's not that there are three Abrahamic covenants, it's that God so values this covenant and wants to underscore it by repetition.

The Abrahamic covenant is now repeated and he will do it again after Abraham takes

Isaac up the mountain. He, at the end of Genesis 22, affirms the Abrahamic covenant for a fourth time.

Clearly very important, right? So why did he change his name? Anybody know what the two names mean?

Abraham, Abram? Might be a note in your mind.

It says in my notes, Abram means exalted father, Abraham means.

Okay, so why the change? Because the covenant promises a multitude of offspring like the stars in the sky or like the sand on the seashore.

It is a promise that Abraham, not just exalted as a father and looked up to and revered

Abram, a father of Ishmael, but a father of multitudes.

That this is referring to the seed promise, the ones who come through Isaac and will become the

Israelites, the nation that is identified with Abraham. Now notice that in circumcision, there is a patriarchal lineage implied, right?

Those who are circumcised are circumcised on the eighth day. And this happens within the covenant community.

So this ethnic people are marked in their bodies as distinct from the nations.

In other words, Israel has become a lighthouse to the nations like a magnet drawing the nations in to demonstrate who

God is. And herein is a big difference between circumcision as a sign of the

Abrahamic covenant and baptism as a sign of the new covenant. In the new covenant, we are not a lighthouse that just sits put and are one ethnic people with a descent from a particular patriarchal lineage that you can trace to one of the 12 tribes and ultimately to Abraham.

No, circumcision represents that Abrahamic covenant, but the new covenant, we are sent out.

And anyone, regardless of the flesh, the descent, the patriarchal descent, they could come from Ishmael or they could come from an entirely

Gentile people group. They are welcomed into the new covenant by the sign of baptism.

So do you see what's happening here? God chose circumcision to indicate a tribe, a particular ethnic people that descend from Abraham, from his own body, from his flesh.

And so you see the sign is associated with reproduction that way. It is an ethnic people group, but baptism is a washing that's available to anyone from any nation.

They didn't know that at the time, but Paul will explain that in Ephesians 3 and later in the tearing down of the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile.

The book of Romans has a big emphasis on that as well. So the promise is to Abraham and his offspring.

One of the remarkable things that we learn in Romans 4 .13 is the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

And in Romans 1 .16 and 17, the offspring are not just the physical descendants of Abraham, but those who have the faith of Abraham.

So the true children of Abraham are the ones who have faith like Abraham had.

And at the end of Genesis 17, we'll see that that also can include Ishmael. He's not the son of promise.

The covenant sign does not refer to him, but by faith in Abraham's God, Ishmael could be included as well.

And Gentiles could have been included with Israel if they came under Israel's circumcision, so to speak, into the believing community of Israel.

So the promise declares Abraham with his offspring to be heir of the world.

What does that mean? He's promised to be the heir of the world.

In chapter 17, verse four, you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.

In Romans 4 .13, Paul summarizes that, that Abraham and his offspring shall inherit the world.

What does that mean, that we inherit the world? We who have faith like Abraham. On Sunday, I taught that it refers to the millennial kingdom, that in the millennium,

Christ reigns as king on earth, and we are his vice regents on the earth. As he reigns from Jerusalem, we reign with him.

And the world belongs to Christians. Right now, who does the world belong to? In a sense, the

God of this age, right? 2 Corinthians 4 .4, who blinds the minds of unbelievers, and our enemy is the world.

The world, the flesh, and the devil. But in the millennium, Christ will reign. Psalm 2, he will be king over the nations, and those who kiss the sun will belong to him and be saved.

We will reign with him. Where do you guys think that we will be? I wonder if it might be physically where we lived in this dispensation.

I wonder if God will have Rick over there in Morristown reigning over a particular place, and each of us in Mount Laurel or wherever.

We don't know the particulars of that, but the idea here is that we will inherit the world by faith.

Okay, and let's move on to Genesis 17, nine to 14.

Judy, if you would. Through 14, yeah.

He is that is eight days old, and mine shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether born, or with your money, shall be circumcised.

So shall my covenant be in your flesh, and ever any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in your flesh, but is horse skin, shall be cut off from his people, and he hath broken the covenant.

Okay, so very interesting there. Is there a provision for someone who is a servant or a slave brought into Israel, a

Gentile, to belong to the covenant? Can they have the covenant sign as well?

Yes, let's look at it. It says in verse 12, halfway through, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.

So was anybody saved in the Old Testament who was not a descendant of Abraham? Clearly, yes.

Who can we think of? Who are some examples? At Jericho, Rahab, yes.

The book of Esther has the daughters coming in, and then

Naomi, I'm sorry, not Esther, Ruth. Ruth coming from the

Moabite peoples. Where was Jonah sent? Nineveh, and if they believed in Yahweh, would they have been justified too?

Which that generation did, they repented. And then the next generation handed it right back to Satan, and Nineveh was destroyed less than 100 years later.

The book of Nahum gives the end result for Nineveh as a people, but individuals were saved, right?

So by coming in, they would then have the covenant sign as well. Now, the huge point that Paul makes about this is we're learning this in chapter 17, where did justification happen by faith?

Earlier or later? Earlier, yes. Justification is by faith, and the sign of the covenant comes later, and Paul makes much of that to explain.

Now, is there really a connection, though, between the sign of the

Abrahamic covenant and the sign of the new covenant? Circumcision and baptism.

John, could I ask you to turn, or you can look on your notes, to Colossians 2, 11 and 12.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made by hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Awesome. That participle at the beginning of verse 12, having been buried, doesn't introduce a new thought, but it modifies and explains verse 11,

Colossians 2, 11. In him also you were circumcised. Did you know that? You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

We're not talking about physical circumcision here. It's a different kind of cutting away.

It is by putting off the body of flesh. That means to be controlled by sinful desire.

The body, the desires of the flesh no longer rule you. That desire, that control of the flesh has been cut away from you, and you have been set free.

How? By what is called the circumcision of Christ.

And that would be the circumcision of the heart. Yes. Which would include females.

Yes, absolutely, yes. And that's the idea. It's the circumcision of the heart, the removing of that sinful control.

You still have a sin nature, but it's been cut away in the sense that you're no longer under the dominion of sin and the world and the devil.

Who is Evan Proctor? Oh, he's looking different over there. Tim got a haircut.

He looks about 10 years younger. He circumcised his face. I think

Rich Van Drew is gonna call me Donald. He circumcised his face. Bob, that's on video.

Okay, let's get back into the test. Okay, but before I do, I do want to comment on the

Presbyterian Baptist argument. The biggest Presbyterian argument for infant baptism is right here in Colossians 2.

This is where they point. Colossians 2, 11 and 12. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

And then there's a correlation here between circumcision and baptism.

So if you have a covenant theology that really emphasizes the continuity between Old Testament and New Testament, when it comes to circumcision and baptism, you might be very prone to map one on top of the other and appeal to this verse to say that babies should be baptized.

Eight day olds, even. Bring them when they're eight days old and sprinkle them with water.

Because it's a correlation. Do you see where they get that? And even in the New Testament, the two concepts are correlated.

But here's the issue. There is correlation and there is continuity between old and new.

But there is also discontinuity. How many discontinuities are there between the new and the old?

The idea that there would be significant discontinuity is contained in the terms themselves, right?

Old and new. Something that has run its course and something that is forever new.

The one is an indicator of the other. It's by nature, Hebrews 8 and 9, lesser than.

The old is pointing forward to something better. And so in the old, you have a continuity in animal sacrifice, right?

Both are sacrificed. There's blood. But the death of these infinite number of animals, repeated again and again and again, is so far inferior to the blood of Christ, once and for all offered.

This new covenant is better and there is a major discontinuity because when

Christ is crucified, do you still sacrifice animals? No. No, it was something for a time.

It's run its course and now the new is better. Do you see that? And that's also the case with the

Sabbath observance and how Christ has become our Sabbath, although there still is principles of rest in there.

We're not bound by the law. We've been set free. The book of Galatians is so important with regard to this.

So in the big picture, as we're talking theologically, do you know what I mean by discontinuity?

Does that word make sense? It doesn't just continue, but there's a change.

With the changing of a dispensation, things are very different. Yes, there's some things that are the same, but things are very different.

On the day of Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit that would come and go in David's life or in Saul's life is now residing in you.

Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31. There's this permanent resonance that gives you greater consistency than even

David had. Peter was saved, justified by faith before Pentecost, but he denied

Christ three times. What happened after the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ and then the coming of the

Holy Spirit? In this dispensation, he's a lion. He's out there preaching, risking his neck.

Things have changed. There are big changes when the new covenant is initiated. Amen? Amen. And when you study the pages of the

New Testament, you never find an example of baptizing babies.

Acts 16 .31, that the Philippian jailer's family was baptized with him, does not indicate that any of those baptized were themselves too young to believe.

That's just a conjecture. But every place you have baptism in the New Testament, it follows faith.

So in Acts chapter eight, the eunuch who had been riding along and Philip met him on the road, gets baptized.

Here's some water. It came after belief. The Philippian jailer, time and again, baptism is after belief.

So we believe in believer's baptism because we're looking to the model of the

New Testament and the general theology of discontinuity there.

Does it make sense? So we could go into that even farther. It's something, though,

I want you to understand that if someone is holding a Presbyterian theology of baby baptism, that's not heretical.

They're emphasizing the continuities and they're looking for parallel with circumcision and they want to identify their kids with the people of God and they have precedent for that in circumcision.

So they're not heretics. Now, if somebody says you have to be baptized in this certain way in order to be saved, like the

Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or maybe even the ICC or the Oneness Pentecostals like Geno Jennings, they all teach that.

Remember, Tim, that's when you get saved and speaking in tongues. Now you've added works to justification by faith and you've lost the gospel.

So the key element here is we can welcome Presbyterians as differing over that point, but still brothers in Christ.

And this is not a point of division for us in the body of Christ, but we do baptize believers, not babies.

So another reminder here, we have a baptism on September 8th. If you can make it, it is worth your time because baptism is a communal event.

We want the church to come as many as possible to witness the sign of the covenant.

It's a public thing. That's the point of it, right? So if all of us could come, whoever's able to make it, it's a beautiful thing down the shore on September 8th.

Okay, next section, Genesis 17. Barbara, could you read verses 15 to 21?

Father of nations, kings of peoples will come from her.

Abraham fell face down. He laughed and said to himself, will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?

Will Sarah bear a child at the age of 90? And Abraham said to God, if only

Ishmael might live under your blessing, then God said, yes, your wife

Sarah will bear you a son and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will surely bless him. I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers.

He will be the father of 12 rulers and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant,

I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.

It had to be through Sarah because Abraham's wife was Sarai. Wife's name was changed to Sarah.

I think both mean princess. They're kind of a derivative of each other. But the idea there of calling her a princess is

I think a couple of things. One is that she will be the queen whom the multitude comes through, right?

But more than that, that idea of princess is just, she's beloved by God. And Abraham needs to treasure her and cherish her.

John, I like what you shared in our pastoral meeting about you guys were separated for some time because you were umpiring up in Cooperstown.

So you weren't sleeping next to your wife every night for some weeks. I did not talk about that in our meeting on That's Okay.

Yeah, no. I'm sleeping in a bed with you. Yeah, no, no. This is going really sideways today, isn't it?

You might wanna stop. Call John up to sing. Yeah, but John shared that he would play this song on his phone or sing the song himself about his princess, essentially.

Remembering your wife every night right before you fell asleep. I think that's beautiful. Not gag me with a spoon, that's beautiful.

But see, that's how you treasure your wife, your Sarah, your princess, right? Beautiful. The problem was

Abraham did not treasure Sarah that way. He wanted the covenant, he wanted descendants, and he agreed to Sarah's wicked plan in chapter 16 to go sleep with another woman.

And so Ishmael was born, and all this slavery to sin and destruction came, so much strife, the

Arab versus Israeli conflict began way back in Genesis 16, the wild donkey of a man,

Ishmael would come from that. But God brings it back to the original here. Husband and wife, male and female, they shall become one flesh.

The beauty of marriage, he affirms that and calls it back to that.

And what I find so fascinating about Genesis 17 at this point is until God actually explicitly says this, what is

Abraham still scheming in his mind? The answer is in verse 18.

What is Abraham still thinking will accomplish the Abrahamic covenant? Ishmael, he hears it and he's like, he laughs.

He's like, I'm almost 100 now, she's almost 90. And then he turns it around and he goes right back to pleading with God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you.

He's still trying to get the covenant through Ishmael. He hasn't fully repented, but then God rebukes that with a strong, no, get that out of your head,

Abraham. No, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son and you shall call his name

Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant, covenant for his offspring after him.

It's a beautiful picture of marital love and God's design back to the original, despite the sinfulness of what needed to be cut away in the circumcision.

Yes. Why would God insist that he be called, he laughs? I don't know why he wanted to underscore that because maybe it's like the joy of the

Lord overcoming the laughter of skepticism because both Abraham and Sarah laughed like almost like, yeah, right.

You know, that's ridiculous. How can I believe this? Like the promise, you know, the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, but then it becomes our great joy.

And I think the laughter there is like a sincere laughter of wow, God actually did this.

Maybe a reminder to us that Abraham and Sarah both laughed when they first heard it. You know,

I don't know. His name's considered laughing. Laughing. Isaac. Isaac, he laughed, yeah.

So maybe he thought that, I mean, because he laughed,

God said, okay, fine, you can have Isaac as your son. You can name him Isaac because he laughed, he made that mistake laughing.

Yeah, as a reminder. But why does he want that forever commemorated in Isaac's name is the question, right?

But I think there's just something about that story he wants us to remember. Don't laugh at the

Lord. And it's a lesson of what not to do, but then the fact that, like, imagine the joy of their laughter when a baby is born and there's this old couple with a brand new baby and it's kind of hysterical, actually.

They're gonna raise this little baby when he's 100 years old and she's 90 and this is the hope of the world.

Messiah will come through this baby. So it's just the joy of God's. Humor. Yeah, his humor, his providential plan being so far better than us and what we could ever ask, think, or imagine.

I guess, I don't know. But yeah, he named him, he laughed. Okay, and then lastly, verses 22 to 27.

Candy, if you could read that. When he had finished talking with them, Abraham stopped and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him.

Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

And Ishmael, his son, was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

That very day, Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised and all the men in his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

Have you ever felt awkward while reading the Bible to your little, little children? I certainly have in reading some of these and questions of what does that mean?

And it's very graphic in a sense. And like, why does God include this? And he actually includes much more difficult things to read throughout later in Genesis, especially with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and then

Lot's wicked daughters and that kind of thing. Why so much emphasis here on circumcision?

I think what he's doing here at the end is he's underscoring that Ishmael, not the son of promise, is actually included in the circumcision.

Isn't that kind of a remarkable thing when you think about it? The whole point of this

Abrahamic covenant and underscoring that it's Sarah, not Hagar, is the son must be

Isaac. The promise is through Isaac and the offspring comes through Isaac. So you're thinking at this point, well then

Ishmael, which Paul in Galatians 4 equates to being an untrue believer, right?

A not son versus Ishmael. I mean, Ishmael's the not son and Isaac is the son of promise.

And Hagar's son is born into slavery to sin and Sarah's son,

Isaac, is born into the freedom of the heavenly Jerusalem. Remember Galatians 4 when we studied that?

They're analogies. But as to the actual person, you would then think, what?

Ishmael is a castaway, right? God has no concern for him. He's not the son of promise.

He's not a true Israelite. He's not a true Jew. And that's how the

Jewish people thought. They would have thought that only the children of God, the promised children, could be saved.

So you've got Jonah sitting under a plant just wanting all of Nineveh to be burned to the ground.

Why? They're dogs. They're Gentiles. But if we paid more careful attention to the word of God, that was never

God's attitude towards the Gentiles, right? Look at this.

Verse 23. Abraham took Ishmael, his son. He's not the son of promise, but he's still a son of natural descent, loved, beloved by Abraham, and all those born in his house and bought with his money.

So the Egyptians he picked up when they were sojourning there, anybody that's finding refuge under Abraham's tent is welcomed in.

If they're willing to identify with the God of Abraham, they can take the sign as well. And I think that this has an evangelistic thrust for us because we're

Gentiles. We're included in the baptism by faith, just like Jews are.

And that should remind our hearts not to cast anybody away. We should go out with the gospel, even if someone seems wicked and a son of wickedness, like Hagar's sin with Abraham, God could save them too.

And this is a picture here of the loving heart of God for the nations, including the

Arabs, because the Arab people will come from Ishmael. And all peoples on earth are going to be welcomed.

This is almost like a foretaste of what's coming in the new. Does that make sense?

In the old, it's very identified with Abraham and his fleshly line, circumcision, and those who are circumcised on the eighth day, a

Hebrew of Hebrews, as Paul used to boast in that. Tribe of Benjamin, a

Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day. But then he counted all that rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing

Christ Jesus as Lord. Right? Philippians 3. Yeah, Rick.

There's also, in verse 26, Abraham and Ishmael.

Yeah, well, I think the idea there is that both of them needed that circumcision sign.

Young and old. The young boy and the old man are both needing to identify, and they have to come this way.

And that's a good reminder of one way as well. We have no other baptism. And it's a good reminder that Abraham was saved and believed

God before he got circumcised. Ah, yes. You came in a little late, Tim, but we, no, no, we, and it's good because we wanted to underscore that as the main idea that Paul picks up on.

Genesis 15 happens before Genesis 17. And anybody who tries to make the sign of the covenant the same as justification by faith is adding works.

Paul will have nothing of that. God justifies the ungodly, Romans 4, 5, by faith.

And then the fruit comes afterwards. Afterwards, the first step of obedience. The first thing we tell new believers to do, get baptized.

We don't make them jump through two years' worth of hoops of discipleship. We wanna disciple them and help them understand what it means.

But right away, we want them to go get baptized. And we'll help them, right? Because it's the first step of obedience.

But it's not what saves you. It's the first step of obedience. And that's the point here. Obedience is actually the mark.

The outer mark in the young boy and the old man wasn't what did it. Their obedience of faith and their willingness to do what

God says. If this had never been known in human history, do you think it came across as a little odd to Abraham and Ishmael?

Dad, you want to do what? No, in his flesh, that would seem very odd.

But in God's plan, it was the sign that he had decreed from before the foundation of the world.

John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Their love for God is shown in their obedience.

And so Ishmael, as a person, not as the analogy in Galatians 4, may have been saved.

Or maybe this was just going along with the outward obedience that Abraham required of him.

Maybe he didn't have a choice. I don't know about Ishmael himself, but we know that God still loves

Ishmael and his descendants because he makes 12 tribes of Ishmael. Remember when

God said that to him? Was it in this chapter? You mentioned the 12 princes?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I will make him a great nation. Yeah. So verse 20.

Yep. He shall father 12 princes, and I will make him into a great nation.

So God still cares about the Arab people, and any individual can come by faith and be baptized.

So think often about the promise made to us that we are heirs of the world.

That helps us take our eyes off of this world and the concerns of this world, because we know what

God has for us in the next life. Just as even Ishmael could be circumcised, as we grow older, let the promise grow in importance to us.

Take the sign of the new covenant, which is baptism, if you have not already. I'm sure everybody here has been baptized.

You guys remember your baptisms? I remember getting baptized. My dad and I were talking about this last time

I was in Florida, and he still remembers as a young boy going down to the river in Washington State and getting baptized.

It should be in your memory as something that you never forget. Candy, you were baptized in the ocean, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, be chafing, yep. But never rely on the sign of the covenant.

Instead, trust in the promise. The sign is not the promise, it's the sign of the promise.

Remember the freedom we have in Christ, never letting anyone put you under a yoke of slavery.

How many religious leaders have done that? Which includes any effort to earn salvation.

If they make you jump through certain hoops in order to be saved, that is not of God. But obey

God from the heart, and this is a sign of true love. Who would like to close us in prayer?

Thank you, Tim. Father God, thank you for this time. It's really been a blessing going through your word in Genesis.

Even in the beginning, all through scripture, Lord, you tell the truth, and we get to see these stories and the example of Abraham through faith and the covenant.

Lord, we pray for people about to be baptized in September 8th, and we pray that you would draw more people who have not yet stepped into the water to identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of your son.

We thank you for these stories that we can continue to go back to and as reminders to keep living for you.

We thank you for what you're doing, and we ask that you can keep blessing these Wednesday afternoons, and we pray in Jesus' name.