Why Circumcision?

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I want to ask you to take out your Bible and turn to Genesis chapter 17.
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And the goal of today is to try to look at the entire chapter.
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But when it comes to our time for reading, we're just going to open by reading the first few verses.
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Are there times when the Bible is hard to understand? I think any of us who is honest would have to say yes, there are times when the Bible is hard to understand.
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And I would say that in a way, today we have come to a passage where we arrive at one of those times.
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Because we're going to read about God giving a sign of a covenant to Abraham.
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And it is a very, well, it's a very awkward sign even to discuss.
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And this is not the first time we see God giving a covenant sign.
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Back in Genesis 9, God made a covenant through Noah with all of creation.
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And he sealed that promised covenant with the beautiful rainbow.
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Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we are reminded that God has promised that he will never again destroy the world with water.
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But the sign for Abraham will not be beautiful or painless.
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The sign that he gives to Abraham will be sealed in blood.
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And everyone who receives it will bear a perpetual scar in their body forever.
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Because the sign that God chooses to give to Abraham is the sign of circumcision.
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And in today's message, and what I have decided last night as I was up until the wee hours thinking about the message, going through my notes one more time, is, will probably be this week and next week, I don't really think I can do everything that I want to say in just one message.
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And really, as I was thinking about it last night, it really became two distinct thoughts.
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And I said, well, I need to separate those.
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But what we are going to do today and next week is we're going to see God giving this sign of circumcision.
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And we're going to see the accompanying conversation that God has with Abraham surrounding the giving of this sign.
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And the responsibilities that God gives to Abraham, not only the sign, but the responsibilities.
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That's what today is going to be about.
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And then next week, we're going to ask, really, we're going to go more in depth on the question, why circumcision and what does it mean for us today? So that's the two parts of the message.
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And if this encourages you at all, one of my and Pastor Mike's favorite pastors is Pastor Brian Borgman.
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He did ten sermons in Genesis 17.
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So if I get two, I feel like I'm being a little more genteel.
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Ten sermons.
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I listened to every one of them.
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They were great.
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But we're not going to go as far as he went.
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But we'll do at least two to look at this wonderful text.
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I will ask that you stand to give honor and reverence to God's word.
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And what I'd like to do is I'd like to read the first two verses and then I want us to go to verse 22.
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So we're going to jump past.
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We will look at the middle, but we're going to in our opening.
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I want to just read the beginning and end.
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Beginning at verse one, it says when Abram was ninety nine years old.
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The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am El Shaddai, God Almighty.
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Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly.
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Now down to verse 22.
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When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
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Then Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all those born in his house, and bought with his money every male among the men of Abraham's house.
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And he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God said to him.
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Abraham was ninety nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
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And Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
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That very day, Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised and all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
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Father in heaven, I pray that you would keep me from error as I preach.
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I pray that you would fill me with your spirit.
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I pray that you would give me boldness, that I would not shrink from the truth, but that I would proclaim it with confidence.
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And I pray, Lord, that your word would not return void as we know that it will not.
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And Lord, as your word is preached today, that it will give us, that you would give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to receive what your word has to say.
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And Lord, as always, we pray that within a room like this, Lord, there's bound to be those who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
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Maybe it's some young folks, maybe it's some older folks, Lord, we don't know.
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But we pray that today, that Jesus would be beautiful, that he would be winsome.
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And Lord, that he would be seen as the one and only savior, worthy of our allegiance.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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As I was doing my initial study of Genesis 17, I began to notice some interesting parts of the writing that began to get my attention.
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And I sort of, I kind of did something Brother Andy often does.
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Brother Andy and I teach together on Wednesday nights, and I get to hear him teach a lot.
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And oftentimes he'll say, this word is used this many times, or this word is used that many times, often counts out the words.
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And sometimes that can be very helpful.
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Well, as I was reading, I began to get interested in how many times the word covenant is used in this chapter.
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The word covenant is used in Genesis 17 12 times in the ESV, maybe a little different in other translations, but 12 times, indicating that this is the focus of the text.
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But also there is another word that comes up almost as many times, and that is the word circumcision.
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The word circumcision is used 10 times.
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And we see this becomes synonymous.
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Circumcision and the covenant are words that are used not to mean the same thing, but to identify the same thing.
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The circumcision is the sign of the covenant.
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By the time you get to the New Testament, it becomes very apparent that for those who were trying to maintain Jewish customs within the New Testament church, what were they called? The circumcision party, right? That's what that's what Paul identifies them as the circumcision party, because this was how they identified themselves as part of the covenant that God made with Abraham.
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And this is where that particular concept is introduced in Genesis chapter 17.
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Another thing we notice, if we look at the whole chapter, is that we will notice that five names are mentioned in this chapter.
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The first one I have already mentioned is the name of God.
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The first time God is mentioned, it is the word Yahweh.
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You'll notice it says in verse 1, When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord, if you look at your Bible, it's capital O, capital L, O, R, D.
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If it's all capitals in your Bible, that indicates that it's translating the word Yahweh or the word Jehovah.
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Now, Jehovah is another way of saying the divine name.
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In fact, we're going to sing a song next week that uses the name Jehovah.
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It says there's no God like Jehovah, there's no God like Jehovah.
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That's fine, that's just another way to translate what's called the Tetragrammaton.
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The Tetragrammaton is the four-letter Hebrew name of God.
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YHVH are the four letters, and it translates either to Yahweh or Jehovah, depending on how you translate it, or how you transliterate it, rather.
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But notice God does not call Himself Yahweh.
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Simply, that is how the text identifies Him.
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It says when Abram was 99 years old, Yahweh, or Jehovah, appeared to him and said, I am El Shaddai.
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How many of you ever heard El Shaddai? There's an old Amy Grant song, right? Is it Amy Grant? El Shaddai, El Shaddai.
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And I don't know the rest.
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But the song, that's how many of us are introduced to things like the divine names, right? Is through a song, so El Shaddai.
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And where that comes from is the word El.
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Anytime the word El is used in Hebrew, before another word, the word El means God.
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And then the word that comes after it is an attribute of God, like El Gibor, God of hosts, God Almighty.
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We see these terms used.
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Elohim is the plural of El.
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And we see that when it says in the beginning, God created, and speaking of God and the plurality of persons.
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But singularity of nature, you know? So we have these terms.
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Shaddai is actually argued about what it means.
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What does this word mean? Some Hebrew writers take different approaches.
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Many of them believe it comes from the same concept as the idea of a mountain.
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Something that's very big and very powerful and very intimidating.
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Something ominous, a mountain.
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And so when the writers of the Septuagint, that is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, translated Genesis chapter 17, they translated it into Greek as God Almighty.
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That's how they understood Shaddai was mighty or almighty.
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And so that is where we get the term.
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That is how we understand the term is to be translated as God Almighty.
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El Shaddai.
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He who is all powerful.
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And in a moment, we're going to see why that's important contextually.
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But as I said, there's five names, and I just want to mention all of them very quickly.
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So we see the name of God.
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God calls Himself El Shaddai.
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Then we see Abram is given a new name.
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Look with me very quickly.
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He goes down in verse 5.
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He says, No longer shall you be called Abram.
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Abram, by the way, Ab is the prefix.
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It means father.
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Ram means uplifted or exalted.
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So Abram or Abram means exalted father.
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God takes off the exalted, and He puts a new connection.
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Ab stays, but now it's Abraham or Abraham.
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And Raham means the multitude.
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It means the multitude or the nations.
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Father of a multitude.
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Now I want you to just think for a moment.
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And again, I've got a plan how we're going to get through this.
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Because I'm stopping at like verse 1, verse 5 here.
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But we're going to get there.
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But I want you to think for a moment.
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Abraham hasn't had a natural child with his wife yet.
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He's had one adopted child, Eleazar of Damascus.
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And he has one child through a handmaiden, Hagar, who is named Ishmael.
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But he doesn't have a child through Sarai yet.
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And yet God changes his name from exalted father.
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Which in itself would have been hard to hear when you don't have any kids.
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He didn't have any kids for 90 years.
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Or 80 something years.
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And he finally gets Ishmael.
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But he's exalted.
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Now he's father of a multitude.
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He didn't have any kids yet.
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Not through his wife.
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But God is giving him this new name.
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Because it's going along with His promise.
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You are going to be a father of the nations.
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A father of a multitude.
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And then later we see that God also gives a new name to Sarai.
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We see this later in the text.
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In verse 15.
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And God said to Abram.
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As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai.
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But Sarah shall be her name.
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Now this is kind of an interesting one.
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Because there's not a lot of meaning difference.
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As we have with Abram and Abraham.
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Exalted father and father of the nations.
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The meaning change between Sarai and Sarah is actually debated.
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Not a lot of people really know the exact meaning.
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Some believe Sarai means my princess.
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And then because the word Sarai and Sarah does have the root of princess.
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So you think maybe Sarai means my princess.
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It's like Abram's wife.
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Versus now she's the princess of the nations.
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Which are going to come from her.
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So there's that concept of idea.
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But the whole thing that I want you to recognize in this changing of names.
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Is this is establishing the promises that God has already given to Abraham.
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Or Abram.
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Back in chapter 12.
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Which he confirmed through cutting a covenant in chapter 15.
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And now he's confirming these promises by changing their names.
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In the ancient world.
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The changing of a name was very significant in the life of a person.
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Because changing their name.
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Indicating a change of status.
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And we still do that today.
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What happens when a woman marries a man? She changes her name.
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Why? Because it's a change of status.
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She is now.
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In fact we used to.
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And anymore today.
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We're in such a hyper politically correct culture.
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But used to.
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It was not.
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You know.
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Mr.
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and Mrs.
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You know.
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You would say Mr.
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John Smith.
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And Mrs.
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Jane Smith.
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You would say this is Mrs.
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John Smith.
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Right? She took his name.
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Right? Mrs.
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John Smith.
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Or Mrs.
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Whatever.
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Right? Because it was.
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She adopted.
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She became part of the family.
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And becoming part of the family.
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She got a new name.
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A new identity.
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She's being brought in to this new thing.
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Right? For this very reason.
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The man shall leave his father and mother.
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Shall cleave unto his wife.
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And the two shall become one flesh.
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One new family.
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One new name.
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Under this house.
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Of the man that she has come into.
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Right? And so.
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Sarai.
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Is now.
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Sara.
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Sara.
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She's now.
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Being identified differently.
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And.
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Who's the one giving the new name? God.
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Because that shows.
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Authority.
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God is showing.
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He is the one.
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Who has the power.
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And the might.
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Because the one who changes the name.
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Is the one with all the power.
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Go to the book of Daniel.
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You remember what happened? When.
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Daniel.
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Was first taken to.
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To Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom.
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Was first taken to Babylon.
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What did they do to Daniel.
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To make him.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar.
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And.
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God is doing this.
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With Abram and Sarai.
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He's saying.
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You are no longer.
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Abram.
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That is over.
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You are now.
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Abraham.
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You have this new name.
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And this new identity.
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This confirms.
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The promise.
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That I've given to you.
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With a new name.
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And.
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Guess what.
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I didn't give you.
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This alone.
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I didn't give you this.
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To go out with Hagar.
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And have.
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A child.
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Or to go find.
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Another woman.
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And have children.
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I'm also giving this to.
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Sarai.
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Who is now Sarah.
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Who is also.
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A part.
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Of this covenant.
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See.
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By giving her.
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The name.
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He's bringing her in.
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And saying.
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She.
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Is part.
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Of this covenant.
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As well.
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This isn't for Abraham.
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Alone.
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But this is the covenant.
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That God will give to Abraham.
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And.
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Sarah.
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Together.
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The other two names.
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Mentioned.
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I said there were five.
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There is El Shaddai.
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Given to God.
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There is Abraham.
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And Sarah.
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Given to Abram.
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And Sarai.
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And the last two.
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Are the two sons.
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Later in the chapter.
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We see.
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Ishmael's name.
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Will come up.
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And you know how.
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Ishmael's name.
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Comes up.
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Abraham.
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Actually.
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Asks.
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God.
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Can he be my heir? Why? Abraham.
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Loved Ishmael.
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He was his son.
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I think.
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We often forget that.
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Sarah.
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Didn't like him.
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Too much.
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But.
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But Abraham.
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Loved it.
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And he says.
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Oh.
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My.
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Oh.
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May Ishmael.
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Live before you.
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And God says.
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No.
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No.
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I have promised.
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You a son.
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Through Sarah.
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And his name.
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Will be called.
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Isaac.
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Now.
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Isaac.
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Means laughter.
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We'll talk about why.
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In a moment.
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But all of these.
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Names.
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So we see the significance.
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Throughout the text.
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We see the significant.
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Changes that are happening.
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We see the renewal.
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Of the covenant.
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Which we're going to look at.
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We see the clarification.
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Of the promises.
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Of the covenant.
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Which we're going to see.
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And then we see.
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The name changes.
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That go along with this.
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And then we're going to see.
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The sign.
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The sign.
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Of the covenant.
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That God is going to establish.
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To affirm.
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And confirm.
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His promises.
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With.
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Abraham.
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You might say.
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Why here? Why now? Why at this point? I think.
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There's a significant reason.
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I think.
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Bruce.
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Bruce.
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Walkie.
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In his commentary on this.
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Really hits the nail.
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On the head.
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Because what he said was.
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At this time.
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Ishmael was 13 years old.
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In fact.
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We read that later in the text.
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This is.
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Ishmael's 13th year.
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What happens.
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When a boy starts hitting.
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11, 12, 13 years old.
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In this culture.
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He's becoming a man.
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And God is intervening.
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To ensure.
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This is not the man.
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Who's going to take.
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The covenant.
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This is not.
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The seed.
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This is not the promised.
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Seed.
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There is still one yet to come.
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So really.
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Chapter 16.
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Which was all about.
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How.
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Ishmael came into the scene.
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And how Ishmael was.
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Born.
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Ishmael.
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Or chapter 16.
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About Ishmael.
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Gives birth to chapter 17.
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The whole.
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Scene.
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And again.
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You might say.
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Well.
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Why is God reconfirming.
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His covenant with Abraham? Well.
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Think about all of the things.
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That happened in chapter 16.
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All of the negative.
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That happened.
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With Abraham.
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Trying to circumvent.
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And bring about the promise.
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By his own power.
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And now.
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It's been 13 years.
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And as far as we know.
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There hasn't been.
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A revelation from God.
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In 13 years.
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We don't know.
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Because it doesn't say.
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Yeah.
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I can't prove that.
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But what we do know.
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Is God.
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Spoke to Abraham.
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And then.
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For 13 years.
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He had the son.
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Running around.
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He was a toddler.
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Then he was a little boy.
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Now.
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He's going to be 13 years old.
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He's probably out.
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Working the fields.
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He's.
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You know.
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13 years old back then.
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A little different.
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13 today.
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Right.
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They're like men.
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Right.
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He's out.
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Working the fields.
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And Abraham.
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Seeing his son grow up.
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He's happy.
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He's got a son.
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He loves his son.
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And God.
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Now intervenes.
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And says.
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But this is not the one.
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There is one still going to come.
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And what does Abraham do? We're going to see this again.
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We're going to read all this.
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But it's just.
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If you haven't read chapter 17.
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He laughs.
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When God says.
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You're.
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You're going to have a son.
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You're going to have a son.
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From your wife.
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Sarah.
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And Abraham.
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Laughs.
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A woman.
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100 years old.
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90 years old.
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She's going to have a baby.
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I mean.
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Wouldn't you? Well.
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Some of you guys.
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You know.
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A little older.
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And God.
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Comes and says.
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You're going to have a baby.
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You might.
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Laugh a little.
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As well.
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Maybe.
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Laugh with joy.
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Maybe.
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Laugh with.
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Fear.
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But that's.
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Where the name.
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Isaac.
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Comes from.
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Laughter.
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Because.
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Not only.
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We see.
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In chapter 18.
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The same thing happens.
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When Sarah hears it.
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When Sarah hears.
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The Lord say.
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She's going to have a baby.
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She laughs.
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All right.
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So.
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Now that we understand the names.
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We understand.
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Sort of the context.
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Now.
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We're going to begin reading through.
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And because it is.
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27 verses.
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I'm not going to be able.
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To spend as much time.
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With every verse.
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As I would like.
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But I want to keep.
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The context going.
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I want to keep.
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Us in the text.
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And I do want to try.
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To read through the whole thing.
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And we're going to break it.
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Into four parts.
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Nate.
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If you bring up the outline for me.
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Here's the four parts.
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Of chapter 17.
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God visits.
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The aging patriarch.
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That's verses.
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One to eight.
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God adds a sign.
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To the covenant.
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That's verses.
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Nine to 14.
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God gives details.
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Of his promise.
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That he previously.
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Had not given.
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I didn't add all that.
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But that's what I'm saying.
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God gives details.
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That he hadn't given before.
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And then Abraham responds.
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In obedient.
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Faith.
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So let's look at it.
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It says.
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When Abram was 99 years old.
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The Lord appeared to Abram.
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And said to him.
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I am El Shaddai.
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Walk before me.
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And be blameless.
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That I may make my covenant.
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Between me and you.
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And may multiply you greatly.
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Then Abram fell on his face.
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And God said to him behold.
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My covenant is with you.
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And you shall be the father.
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Of a multitude of nations.
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No longer shall your name be Abram.
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But your name shall be Abraham.
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For I have made you the father.
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Of a multitude of nations.
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I will make you exceedingly fruitful.
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And I will make you into nations.
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And kings shall come from you.
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And I will establish my covenant.
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Between me and you.
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And your offspring after you.
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Throughout their generations.
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For an everlasting covenant.
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To be God to you.
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And to your offspring after you.
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And I will be.
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Excuse me.
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I will give to you.
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And to your offspring after you.
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The land of your sojournings.
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All the land of Canaan.
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For an everlasting possession.
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And I will be their God.
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All right, let's stop.
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Stop there for the first section.
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I want you to notice right away.
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God is using the context.
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And the way that the verbs are working.
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And the English are a little hard sometimes.
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Because translating directly out of Hebrew into English.
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Sometimes it's great.
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Sometimes it's a little bit more difficult.
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But one of the things I want you to notice.
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He says this.
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I may make my covenant.
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And I will establish my covenant.
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And first of all.
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I don't know about you.
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But when I first read that.
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I took a step back.
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And I said wait a minute.
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Didn't he already do that? You know I had to take a step back.
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And I had to say.
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Wait a minute.
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God already did this.
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I mean.
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We remember chapter 15.
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Right? Took the animals.
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Cut the animals in half.
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Separated them.
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It was a big bloody mess.
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We had the smoking fire pot.
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And the torch that went through those animals.
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God confirming unilaterally.
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His promises to Abraham.
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And then we say.
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Wait a minute.
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Something happened even before that.
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If you go back to chapter 12.
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Go from your country and your kingdom to your father's house.
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To the land that I will show you.
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And I will make you a great nation.
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I will bless those who bless you.
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I will curse those who curse you.
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And in you all the nations of the world will be blessed.
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Right? So we have promises back at chapter 12.
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We have a confirmation.
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Cutting of a covenant in chapter 15.
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And now God is saying.
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I will make the covenant.
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It's like wait.
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This already happened.
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That has led some to believe.
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That God made two covenants with Abraham.
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There was a covenant in chapter 15.
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There's another covenant in chapter 17.
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I don't agree with that.
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Now if that's your position.
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We can talk about it.
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And I will say this.
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If you have an NIV study bible.
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Page 19.
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At least in the one that I was looking at.
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It actually says.
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Abraham had two covenants.
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Covenant A.
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Covenant B.
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So there are some who take that position.
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However I prefer to take a different position.
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I believe it's all one covenant.
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The covenant God gave to Abraham.
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And this is how it's explained.
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There's a book called Kingdom through Covenant.
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By Wellman Gentry.
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It's a very big, thick, nice book on covenants.
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And this is the way they explain it.
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They said chapter 12 is the giving of the promise.
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Chapter 15 is the cutting or making of the promise.
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And then chapter 17 is the confirming of the covenant with the son.
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But it's all the same covenant.
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And here's the exegetical reason for that.
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We say the linguistic reason.
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There are different words used for making a covenant.
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One is qarat barit.
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Which means to cut a covenant.
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That means to establish it or start it.
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Cutting the animal in half.
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Or the idea of cutting the covenant.
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And then there is the word hakim barit.
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Which means to confirm the covenant.
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And there are two different ideas.
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And what we see in chapter 15 is qarat barit.
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That is the cutting of the covenant.
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But now the word is different.
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When he says I will make the covenant.
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He says I will confirm it.
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And what is the confirmation? The confirmation is in this sign.
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I'm going to give you something that you're going to perpetually have on your body to confirm that I made this promise.
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And I made the promise back in chapter 15.
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I made this promise years ago.
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But now it's going to be confirmed in a sign that you're going to have on your body.
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So it's all the same.
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At least in my estimation.
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You want to argue with me? You can.
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Give me a call.
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I love to talk Bible.
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But I'm convinced at least at this point.
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That that is the point.
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In fact, I want to quote to you from Kingdom through Covenant.
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This is what it says.
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It says we may be confident that Genesis 17 is a confirmation of God's covenant with Abraham initiated in Genesis 15.
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Genesis 15 and 17 correlate respectively with the first three promises and the second promises.
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Second three promises of Genesis 12, 1 to 3.
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Go back to Genesis 12, 1 to 3.
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Go from your country and your kingdom and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation.
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I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who curse you.
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And then he goes on to say, and I will bless the nations through you.
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And one of the commentators I was reading said, what we see in chapter 15 is the blessings to Abraham and in chapter 17 is the blessings to the nations.
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Because what do we see in chapter 17 that we haven't seen yet? There's a promise kings will come from you.
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It's the first time we see the promise to Abraham that they're actually going to be kings that come from him.
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And we do know that that happened.
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And not only the kings of Israel, think about it.
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Abraham has other children.
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He has Ketorah with many sons and daughters.
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And even Ishmael has 12 tribes that come from him.
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We look at this, we see Ishmael has 12 generations come from him.
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He's going to have kings that come out of his lineage.
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But what's the most important king that came from Abraham? Jesus Christ.
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And so the promise that kings will come from you, this is looking, certainly looks forward to the Davidic kingdom, looks forward to the kingdom under Solomon and even the divided kingdom where we see many kings coming from Abraham.
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But what's the most important king? The king of kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, who will come from the seed of Abraham and Sarah, will come from the seed of Isaac, will come from the seed of Jacob, will come through Judah.
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And what does the Bible say to Judah in Genesis? It says the scepter will not be removed from your house because the king will come from your loins.
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So we see the blessing to the nations here in chapter 17 in a way that it hasn't been expressed before.
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So all of this, simply to say, I believe this is all the same covenant.
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It's just it's expanding and explaining what has already been promised as God reveals himself progressively through the covenant and through these commands to understand these come with this covenant.
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And that's what I want to look at right now.
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It's very quickly noticed that this is also the first time God gives Abraham covenant responsibilities.
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Look with me again at verse two that I may make excuse me, verse one, I am God Almighty walk before me and be blameless in that.
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Interesting.
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That's Abraham's responsibility.
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And we might step back and we say, wait a minute.
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Abraham had a unilateral, unconditional, absolutely by grace covenant from God.
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And by the way, what do you have if you're in Christ, unilateral, unconditional, absolutely by grace covenant from God, right? But let me ask you a question, even though we're in covenant with God through Jesus Christ, unilaterally, unconditionally and fully by grace, does that mean that our covenant with Christ has no responsibilities? Not at all.
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We are called to do what? Walk before him and be blameless.
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You go to Ephesians chapter one, verse four.
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It says that's the very reason that we would be holy and blameless before him.
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And interesting that that's the preposition because we can talk about God being in us.
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Right.
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We say and being in him.
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That preposition being in we are in him, he is in us, but that's not the preposition here.
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The preposition here is before.
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And what does it mean to be before God? It means how you live.
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You live before God.
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And he says to Abram, I am God almighty.
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Walk before me blameless.
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That's the call of the covenant.
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That's Abraham's call.
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And I would say and again, you argue with me later if you want to.
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I got the mic right now.
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But I believe that same call is ours.
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You have been saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
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It is by no work that you have done and no work that you could ever do to save yourself.
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Therefore, walk before me and be blameless.
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Be obedient.
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You say, well, wait a minute, blameless.
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I can't be perfect.
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Blameless doesn't mean perfect.
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Blameless is actually the same qualification given to the elders.
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That we'd be above what? Above reproach.
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It's not sinless perfectionism, and those who maybe come from Methodism or maybe some kind of hyper Pentecostal churches, they'll tell you you can live a perfect, sinless life.
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Bible doesn't teach that.
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I don't believe that.
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But we are called to live before him in holiness.
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And the Bible says that when we stray in that, what are we to do? Repent.
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How often do you go to churches today? You never hear the word repent.
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In fact, I know pastors who will say, I don't preach repentance because that's work salvation.
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Don't do that.
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No, please.
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Sorry.
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It's just like, no, Jesus's first words when he preached was what? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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What do we call the world to do? Repent and believe the gospel, salvation, repentance to God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Right.
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And so he's calling Abraham.
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Think about Chapter 16.
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He made a boo boo.
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He tried to take it his own direction, tried to do his own thing, tried to work out his own plan.
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God now comes to him and says, I am God almighty.
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And you're going to walk before me blameless.
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That's your responsibility.
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That's your that's the covenant responsibility.
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You have walked before me and be blameless.
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Let me say this very I'll quote it because I wrote it a certain way.
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The call of obedient faith.
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Is not at odds with salvation by faith alone.
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The call to an obedient faith is not at odds with salvation by faith alone, because we're still saved by faith alone, but faith.
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Is obedient, Jesus said, if you love me, what do you do? You keep my commandments.
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You say I'm not perfect, I'm not calling for it, please don't go home and say, Pastor Keith called us to sinless perfectionism, I'm not.
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But I am saying this, if we believe in the doctrine of sanctification.
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By the way, if you weren't here Wednesday night, that was my whole teaching was on the doctrine of sanctification, it is that when you come to Christ and he changes your heart, he changes your life.
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Amen.
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Things change.
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You see the world differently.
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You see your life differently.
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You see righteousness differently.
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And life is different when we come to him or rather when he comes to us and draws into himself.
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So we're still in verse one.
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Let's move on.
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We've looked at looking at verse one to eight.
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We've noticed God is he is, I believe, reconfirming the covenant he has made.
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And in that sense, he is reminding Abram of his promises, of what he's going to do.
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And we see this in the promise of the seed and the land, by the way.
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Don't have time to get into all of it, but the seed and the land promise are both fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
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So how in the world? Jesus Christ is the promised seed.
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And the new heaven and the new earth, which he has gone to prepare for us, is the is the land.
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As simple as I can put it, people make a big deal about that little parcel of land over in Palestine.
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Yeah, it's it's it's got political significance, but its purpose was not to be the end all be all of our final blessing.
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It was to point to the new heaven and the new earth that we will inherit forever.
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Forever.
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Not a little sliver of land in the middle of East, but the whole new earth is the fulfillment of this land promise.
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So just keep that in mind.
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Now, let's look at verses nine to 14.
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This is the giving of giving giving of the the sign.
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And Abraham said, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
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This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you, every male among you shall be circumcised.
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Now, I do want to apologize if you have small children.
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I'm obviously you may have to go home today and explain some things.
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Sorry, this is the language of scripture, but we know what circumcision is, the medical procedure that's done and how it happens.
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And notice what he says, you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
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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 a foreigner who is not of your offspring.
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Both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with with your money shall surely be circumcised.
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So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant.
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Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of the foreskin shall be cut off from his people.
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He has broken my covenant.
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OK.
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A couple of things to say about verses nine to 14 next week sermon, I'm going to really outline more of this about what circumcision is for, who's receiving it and why don't we make this a stipulation for the new covenant? We're going to talk about that more next week.
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But just for today to get through the text, I want to just give you a few thoughts.
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One, circumcision was not invented by Abraham.
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It was in use prior to the Abrahamic covenant.
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In fact, it was in use by many other cultures, but most of the other cultures used it as either an entrance into puberty.
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So it didn't happen until a boy was becoming a man, 13, 12, 13 years old.
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Sorry, stop.
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So so that so that's one thing.
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But the other thing is it was sometimes used as a religious ceremony for the separation or the dividing out of people who were taking a specific religious position like a priesthood or something may have been circumcised.
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The thing that made the Abrahamic covenant sign of the circumcision distinct from other cultures around is that it was given at birth, eight days old, and it was given to all of the men at eight days old.
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Everyone who was in the household received the sign because everyone who was in Abraham's house was a member of this covenant.
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By virtue of being a child of Abraham.
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Now, next week, we are going to see that there was something internal that was supposed to go along with the external, what the book of Deuteronomy called circumcision of the heart.
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That was supposed to accompany the circumcision of the flesh.
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But understand this, everyone and you didn't have to be born of Abraham.
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You just had to be a member of his household, whether you were purchased.
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And Abraham did have people that he purchased.
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He did have people that remember when he went to Egypt and the pharaoh took his wife and gave him servants.
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Remember, that's where we think Hagar come from.
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So he had servants that had come into his house.
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He has.
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Think about how many people this is.
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When Abram, when Lot got stolen and he had to go fight off King Kilomer and all those other kings.
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How many people did he take with him? Three hundred fighting men, right? Over 300 fighting men.
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Now, I just for a moment, I want to imagine the conversation.
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All right, guys, hello.
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I heard from the Lord.
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Yeah, OK, so, you know, kind of just imagine how that conversation went, because it's we're going to read a few moments, complete obedience.
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Abraham circumcises everybody.
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Including himself.
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At 100 years old, he circumcised even himself.
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But that's the sign that they all received by being a member of his house.
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Here's the thing, people say, well, wait a minute, if that sign already existed, what makes it special? God makes it special.
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God is able to take that which already exists and use it for his purpose.
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I mean, honestly, what do we use for communion? Bread and wine.
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Or we're Baptists, so we use grape juice, but I'm just saying the bread in the cup, the bread in the cup have always existed.
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But Jesus takes the bread in the cup and he gives it new significance.
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This is my body given for you.
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This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.
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And when you now from now on, when you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you show forth the Lord's death until he comes.
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Right.
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Christ takes what already exists and he gives it new significance.
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God takes what other cultures are using to to demonstrate entrance into manhood or demonstrate entrance into priesthood.
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And he says, no, this is now going to be the sign of entrance into my covenant family, the family of Abraham through this sign.
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OK, now verse 15.
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And God said to Abraham, as for you, excuse me.
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Yeah.
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And God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
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I will bless her.
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And moreover, I will give you a son by her.
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I will bless her and she shall become nations.
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Kings of people shall come for.
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By the way, Abraham received this promise back in chapter 12.
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I will bless you.
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I will make nations.
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You know, now he adds Sarai or Sarah to the blessing.
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Not only you, but your wife are going to be the recipient of this blessing.
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I will bless her.
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Moreover, I will give you a son by her.
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I will bless her and she shall become nations.
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Kings of people shall come from her.
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Then Abraham fell on his face.
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By the way, it says earlier he was already on his face.
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So apparently he'd gotten back up just to point that out.
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He was already down on his face once.
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God starts talking about Sarah having a child.
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He's back down again.
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But this time he's down in laughter, says he fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 99 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you.
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God said, no, but Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac.
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I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
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As for Ishmael, I have heard you.
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Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly.
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He shall father 12 princes.
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And I will make him into a great nation, but I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.
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This is just a very important section because.
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And I don't want to spend too much time on this, but.
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Abraham has a relationship with God that is amazing.
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Because he can interact with God.
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In a way that I think is just just blows my mind, what's he called later in scripture, the friend and God says, I'm going to give you the child through Sarah and he says, no, God, why don't you just use Ishmael? I already have a son and God doesn't strike him down.
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Think about it later on.
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You remember Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, your wife's going to have a son and he talked back to the angel, boom, mute for nine months.
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I mean, he's like nothing.
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You're not going to be able to talk till this kid's born.
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He had to write the name.
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Remember, he said his name is John.
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We remember the story, but Abraham has this relationship with God.
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He can interact with God and he says, but God, what about Ishmael? Now I'm going to bless Ishmael because he's your son and I know you love him.
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Doesn't say that, but I think there's certain implications there.
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He says, I will bless Ishmael, but he is not the promise.
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He is not the one through whom the seed will come.
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This is not and I'll say in a shortened New Testament form, this is not the ancestor of Jesus Abraham.
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Now, Abraham would have understood that he would have understood the fullness of what that meant.
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But that's the point.
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If you follow the line from Abraham to Jesus, it don't go through Ishmael.
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It goes through Isaac and it don't go through Esau.
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It goes through Jacob and it don't go through Levi.
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It goes through Judah because God has his plan to bring about his son through all of this.
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So when Abraham says, what about this son? That's not the one.
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That's not the one that I made the promise about, and that's not the one I'm going to fulfill the promise through.
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But there is coming another.
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Some people take a big issue with him laughing.
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I honestly get it because it does seem like he is mocking God.
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And in chapter 18, when we see Sarah laugh, God does take an offense and he calls her out.
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But notice, God doesn't call out Abraham.
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Abraham, he doesn't call him out.
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Some people say, well, why not? And some people try to whitewash it, they try to say, well, maybe Abraham wasn't really laughing at the idea.
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Maybe he was laughing with joy, and that's possible.
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We don't know why he was laughing.
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God didn't call him out.
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But I do want you to hear this.
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You don't have to turn there unless you just want to run to Romans four.
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But I want you to listen to what Romans four, what Paul says about the heart of Abram in this very moment.
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Listen to what he says.
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Romans four, verse 18.
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In hope, Abraham believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations, as he was told, so shall your offspring be.
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He did not weaken in faith when he considered his body, which was as good as dead since he was about 100 years old.
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So it's talking about this very moment.
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Or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb, unbelief, excuse me, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God.
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So whatever the laughter was, it wasn't laughter of unbelief.
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As Paul says, he wasn't in unbelief.
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He might have been in shock.
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Hundred years old.
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He might have been laughing to himself in amazement.
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But it wasn't an unbelief.
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Because he knew El Shaddai, he was the friend of God and he knew God can do what he wants.
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He trusted God, even though what he said made him laugh.
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All right, let's finish the chapter chapter of verse 22.
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It says when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
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Then Abraham took Ishmael, his son and all the born in his house and brought bought with his money every male among the men of Abram's house.
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And he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins.
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That very day, as God had said to him, Abraham was ninety nine years old.
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We already read this earlier.
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Abraham was ninety nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh.
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Ishmael was 13 years old when circumcised in the flesh.
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And that very day, Abraham and his son were circumcised.
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And all the men of his house, which would have been over 300 men one day.
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Well, that's a sharp knife and a lot of cutting, but that's quick.
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Lot of men very quickly.
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And it was done in one day.
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All of them were circumcised.
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So what do we see here in this last these last few verses, verses 22 to 27? We see the outworking of the obedience of faith.
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God called Abraham to obedience, and Abraham responded in faithful obedience.
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Abraham's faith is not a perfect faith.
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He had questions, he laughed.
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But when it came time to obey.
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He demonstrated his faith and his obedience.
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A legitimate question that should come into all of our hearts, having read that is this, does our faith demonstrate itself in obedience, not perfectionism.
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But a desire to be faithful circumcision was Abraham's call to faithfulness.
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He's going to get another one later.
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In chapter 22, which I'm almost, I don't say I'm afraid to preach it, I'm intimidated to preach Genesis 22 because of the power of that moment when God says to Abraham, take thy son, thy only son, whom thou lovest.
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And sacrifice him.
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On the Mount, Abraham was a man of faith who was saved by grace alone, but his faith didn't use grace as an excuse for disobedience, but rather the grace of God put forward a faith in him which lived itself out in obedience to God's commands.
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Beloved.
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James, chapter two, asks us this very question, what good is it if someone says he has faith and does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one says to him, go in peace and be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead.
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But someone will say you have faith and I have works.
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And James says this, show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works.
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You believe that God is one.
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You do well.
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Even demons believe and shudder.
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You come to me today and you say, pastor, I believe in Jesus, but it hasn't changed my life.
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I would say you have not believed in the Jesus of the body.
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Because a faith that is real is a faith that will change.
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And it will cause a desire to walk before him.
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And be blameless.
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May God give us that desire, which only he can do.
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Let us pray.