Branded by the Lord

Aug 13

August 13, 2023

Preached by Noah Gwinn

Scripture Reading

Genesis 17:1-27

17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” 19 God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”

22 When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.23 Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26 That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. 27 And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

INTRODUCTION

The Bible isn’t a tame book. It’s not always as cutesy as we might think. This is one of those passages of Scripture that we read and rightly are like “what is going on here? Why on earth is this in the Bible?” Especially if you aren’t as familiar with the Bible or Christianity, you might be sitting here asking yourself “God told Abraham to do what? At the age of 99?” Well, let me just say that the way we often preach the Bible here at church is by going through big sections of the Bible a little bit at a time, not skipping around. And one of the reasons we do that is so that we can plumb the depths of passages that might seem hard or strange at first. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). All of it. So, our task this morning is to hear what the Lord has for us in this seemingly strange chapter in the Bible about circumcision. And although it might be hard to see right now, this passage teaches us something wonderful about our God, and it has direct application and encouragement for us today. To be specific, this passage shows us that God gives us ways to remember that he is faithful to the covenants he makes. So, like Benjamin said last week as it related to his sermon, I hope to lead us through this passage in a way that is both meaningful and appropriate. And kids, if you’re here this morning and you want to draw a picture to help you focus, draw a picture of someone you know that you can trust. It might be mom or dad or a friend but think of someone who is trustworthy and keeps their promises. Also, this week is our last week of doing these sermon drawings this summer, so I hope to see a bunch of pictures from this week!

Before we dive into our passage this morning let’s pray for the Lord’s help and ask God to be our teacher.

Heavenly Father…

GOD’S END OF THE BARGAIN (THE COVENANT ESTABLISHED) vv. 1-8, 15-21

Well, this morning we are going to take a look at the covenant that God makes with Abram in Genesis chapter 17, and we’ll do so by looking at the passage from two different perspectives: we’ll see God’s end of the bargain and Abram’s end of the bargain, and then we will end our time together talking about how this all relates to us.

First, we’ll look at God’s end of the bargain in this covenant. But before we do that, we need to remember the context that this covenant is coming into. This morning we find ourselves in what I’ll call part two of a larger story. Last week we heard part one, and today’s passage continues the narrative on into part two. Since the summer can be such a transient time, I’ll recap a bit so we’re all on the same page. If you remember, last week Pastor Benjamin talked a lot about waiting. Waiting is hard for all of us. It doesn’t matter if it’s August and you’re waiting for Christmas at Grandma’s in a few months, or if you’re in between semesters and you’re on pins and needles waiting for move in day at college again, or, like Abram and Sarai, you’re waiting on God to provide. For all of us, young and old alike, waiting is hard. And in last week’s passage, we saw that Abram and Sarai had their patience put to the test. For decades, Abram and Sarai were unable to have children, and in the midst of what felt to them to be a dark night, light seemed to break through. God had promised not just a child, but a great nation that would come from them.

But in our passage last week it had been 10 years since God had made that promise, and Abram and Sarai are only getting older and have nothing to show for it. The darkness seemed to be creeping back, distorting their view of the light. I mean, think about it, what did your life look like 10 years ago? Consider how many things have changed in that time – to put it in perspective, 10 years ago was the Boston Marathon Bombings, and before most Americans had heard of ISIS, before TikTok was invented, and certainly before COVID. So, think about just how long 10 years would be to wait for something that you deeply desire that God has told you that you will have. It was enough time for Abram and Sarai to start questioning the promise. “Did God really say?” Specifically, it seems like they begin to think “sure, God promised a son to Abram… but does that mean that the baby will come from Sarai?” So, they grow impatient and decide to take God’s promises into their own hands, and Abram has a son with one of Sarai’s servants. To be clear, this was not the son God had promised, and certainly not the way that God intended the promised son to come into the picture.

And I think we can miss some of the weight of the waiting when we split up last week’s passage and this week’s passage at the chapter break. Remember, when the Bible was written it wasn’t split up into chapters. So let me read the last two verses of Genesis chapter 16 from last week’s passage with the first two verses of chapter 17 from this week’s passage.

16:15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”

So, chapter 16 ends with “Abram was 86 years old”. Next verse, “when Abram was 99 years old the Lord appeared to [him]”. Look back down at your Bible. You see that little, tiny blank space in between chapters 16 and 17? That represents thirteen long years. Thirteen more years after the ten years they had already waited. Thirteen more years with no promised son. We can read those verses in 30 seconds but think about this – don’t just think about what your life was like 10 years ago, think about what your life was like 23 years ago. Pre-9/11, Pre-iPhone, pre-Twitter, Facebook, or even MySpace. For some in this room, you weren’t even alive 23 years ago. Consider how much that would test your patience to wait that long for something. Some of you don’t have to think very hard about what that would be like. Some of you have been praying for a spouse or a child to come to the Lord for that long. And others of you haven’t been praying for your spouse or child because it feels like you’ve been waiting for an eternity just to find a spouse or to have a child. Some of you have been deeply longing for the Lord to take you home for as long as you can remember. Whether you’ve been waiting for these things (or others) for three years, twenty-three years, or eighty-three years, the Lord sees you, and will meet you in your pain, just as he met Abram.

So, twenty-three years after Genesis chapter 12 when God first establishes his covenant with Abram, telling him that he will be a great nation, and thirteen years after Genesis 15 when God tells Abram to count the stars, we see God bring up the covenant again. God says to Abram in chapter 17, verses 1 and 2, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”

Before we keep pressing on, we need to take a second to slow down and talk about what a covenant even is. If you’ve been around Christianity for a while, you have probably heard that word, but outside of the church we don’t really hear it very often. I mean, a few of you here send your kids to Covenant Christian Academy, and maybe you’ve seen trucks driving on the highway that say, “Covenant Transport.” Maybe you’ve even heard that two of our pastors have gotten their education from Covenant Seminary. Or maybe you’ve heard about the Ark of the Covenant from the Old Testament, or maybe you even have theories about its whereabouts from watching Indiana Jones. So perhaps you’ve at least heard the word covenant, but regardless, it's worth explaining. And a basic way that I can explain a covenant is to say that a covenant is a binding agreement between two parties that includes requirements for at least one party and often includes blessings and curses for obedience or failure. It is different from a contract because in a contract there is some kind of exchange taking place – “I will hold up my end of the bargain so long as you hold up yours.” This is the way most business transactions take place today. In contrast, a covenant says, “I am agreeing to hold up my end of the bargain even if you don’t hold up yours.” And so, to bring this to ground level, the primary common example of a covenant that we see today is in a marriage. In marriage, you make a binding commitment to love and serve the other person even if they stop loving and serving you.

This is the type of agreement that God is making with Abram. But just because it’s a covenant and not a contract doesn’t mean that both parties don’t still agree to something. Put another way, both God and Abram have a part to play in this covenant. To see God’s end of the bargain, let’s keep looking at chapter 17, and focus in on verses 4-8:

4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

To sum that up, as one Bible scholar says, “In its most basic form, God states the covenant like this: I will be your God, and you will be my people.”[1] This is the first time God makes this statement, but it becomes a major theme all throughout Scripture, being repeated over forty times. At the end of the book of Revelation, when all has been made right, we read “and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’” (Rev. 21:3). In Genesis, the very first book of the Bible, we see the first time that God explicitly tells us about what our relationship with him will be like, and in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we are told that that relationship continues on into eternity. It is amazing that God, the creator of the universe, the holy one, would initiate relationship with us. If we aren’t surprised by that, we need to reorient our hearts and minds around who God is and who we are.

Because who God is is perfect and holy. And who we are is created, and finite. So part of what it means for God to be our God is for him to hop into the driver’s seat of our lives. That’s why we call him Lord. He makes the calls. But even more than that, for God to be our Lord is for us to recognize that our lives are no longer our lives at all. As a Christian, I must realize that my life is God’s possession. So what that means for Abram is that God is going to rearrange some things. And one of the primary ways we see him doing that here is that he’s going to change Abram’s name. “No longer shall your name be called Abram,” we read, “but your name shall be called Abraham” (v. 5). Similarly, in verse 15, God says, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.”

Now, this is wonderful news for a couple reasons. First, we can finally refer to him as Abraham. That is going to make our lives so much easier. I have been messing up for 3 months now. But more importantly, it’s good news for Abraham and Sarah. Because we have to remember that in the ancient world, names were deeply integral to one’s identity. Often that is related to the meaning of names. Abram’s name meant something like “exalted father” and now, his new name Abraham means something like “father of a multitude.” Sarai and Sarah both mean princess. So the big takeaway from the names is not so much in God changing something about their meaning as much as reaffirming their meaning – for Abraham to be confirmed as a father of a multitude and for Sarah to explicitly be confirmed as one who would bear Abraham’s child. This should have been obvious before, but God makes it very plain now. In fact, in changing Sarai’s name to Sarah, he reaffirms the meaning of her name – princess. Princesses bear royalty, princesses bear future kings[2]– and one day, from her seed would come the King of Kings, Jesus himself.

Also, in changing their names, it was a statement of God’s ownership of Abraham and Sarah. Whenever someone would call them by their new names, they would be reminded that they were not their own. The names they had been called by for nearly a century had been changed by the one who had also told them, “I will be your God.” Think about if you were given a new name, what that would say. Again, this is where the idea of marriage is helpful to us. When you enter into the covenant of marriage, things change. And specifically, when a woman enters into the covenant of marriage, she often changes her name. She belongs to a new family. And each time she hears her new name, especially for the first few months, it’s a sweet reminder of the new family she belongs to.

Notice what else God claims as his end of the bargain. Look at verse 6:

6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.

If you’ve been around the Bible for a little bit, you may remember hearing something about being fruitful and multiplying before. That is the command that God gives to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1, and what he says to Noah after the flood in Genesis 9. But there’s a difference. When God spoke to Adam and to Noah, to be fruitful and multiply was a command. When he speaks to Abraham, it’s a promise. Not just “be fruitful and multiply” but “I will make you exceedingly fruitful.” There is a big difference here because this isn’t God telling Abraham and Sarah, in their 90s, to “try harder” after struggling to get pregnant for decades. God is saying here that he will give them something they don’t have in themselves. This child will be a miracle, and God is proving that to them by having them wait until they are each nearly 100 years old for him to show his power. Similarly, as we look at verse 8, God isn’t saying to Abraham, “take the land” but rather “I will give to you… all the land of Canaan.” The covenant of God with Abraham includes God taking upon himself the giving of a promised child and a promised land.

When I was in college, I met a guy named Sam. As I was getting to know Sam, I asked him where he grew up, and he told me a story of how he was born in a different country to very poor parents. It wasn’t long after he was born that his parents realized that they couldn’t afford to keep Sam. However, there wasn’t an established foster care system, and there weren’t any orphanages nearby, so his parents, against everything they knew was right, abandoned him, leaving him essentially to die. But there was a missionary couple that lived in the village, and when they heard about this story, they took Sam into their home as a baby. They fed him and clothed him and raised him as their own. Eventually, they were able to go through the process of adoption, and now Sam really is fully a member of their family. Based on nothing that Sam could offer or provide, this family cared for him, fed him, clothed him, and raised him. In so many ways, this is what is happening with Abraham and Sarah. Just like the missionary couple didn’t say to baby Sam, “try harder to find food and clothing,” but instead gave it as a gift, God here gives Abraham and Sarah the promise that he will make them fruitful and that he will give them the land. That he will give them a new name that says that they belong to a new family. And he did that because of no other reason than his goodness and kindness. God initiated relationship even though Abraham and Sarah had nothing to offer.

When we realize our weakness, woundedness, and waywardness, seeing God’s initiative of relationship with us and his kindness in bearing the burden of so much of this covenant should give us great hope. We serve a God who deeply desires relationship with us. We serve a God who gives life where there once was death.

ABRAHAM’S END OF THE BARGAIN (THE COVENANT KEPT) vv. 9-14, 22-27

But just because God takes things upon himself, it does not mean that there is nothing for Abraham to do. This is Abraham’s end of the bargain. Read verses 9-14 again with me.

We’re going to camp out here for a little bit, because this part of today’s passage is super important. So just to clarify, as part of God’s covenant with Abraham, God tells Abraham that he needs to be circumcised. But not just him, all his male descendants, any male that is living in his house, any male servant… anyone, Jew or Gentile, that is in the household of Abraham is to be circumcised and included in the covenant (which, by the way, is super cool. It shows that from the beginning, the people of God have always been meant to include the nations. But that’s an aside and would make for another great sermon).

Take a closer look at verse 11. It says that this circumcision is to “be a sign of the covenant” between God and Abraham. Naturally, we might ask, “what does that mean? What is a sign of a covenant?” Since marriage is probably the most common covenant we see today, let’s return to the idea of marriage we mentioned earlier. When two people are getting married, it is common to hear the pastor ask the couple, following the vows, “what sign of the covenant of marriage do you bring?” To which they will each respond, “this ring.” In a marriage, a wedding ring is the sign of the covenant that the two people are entering into. And as we discussed as we were teaching through the Gospel of John over the past year, a sign is something that points beyond itself to something greater. In a marriage, the wedding ring itself is not the covenant, but points to the covenant – it points to the life-long commitment that a man and a woman made to one another on their wedding day.

In a similar way, when God tells Abraham that he and all the males in his household are to be circumcised, he is not saying that circumcision is the entirety of the covenant, but he is saying that it points beyond itself to something greater. But why circumcision? Doesn’t that seem like kind of an odd, or even grotesque thing to use as a sign? Wouldn’t any sign do? Well, I believe that God had his reasons for using this sign in particular. Here are a few of them:

1. God Wanted Abraham to Have a Permanent Reminder

The first reason I believe God specifically gave Abraham the sign of circumcision is because he wanted Abraham to have a permanent reminder of the covenant. God knows that we are forgetful people. We are often visual learners. We may have trouble remembering what someone said, and we may even forget what we had for breakfast on Thursday morning. But I bet you have stories for most of the scars on your body. In a similar way, God wanted Abraham to never forget the covenant. So he branded Abraham forever to remind him of the promises God made. Abraham’s scars screamed God’s faithfulness, even when Abraham’s memory failed.

2. God Wanted to Meet Abraham in His Place of Greatest Weakness

I believe a second reason God specifically gave Abraham the sign of circumcision is because God wanted to meet him in his place of greatest weakness. I don’t want to be crude, but I don’t think it is a mistake that the place on Abraham’s body that bore the marks of God’s covenant was a reproductive organ. For decades, Abraham and Sarah had struggled to get pregnant, even though God promised them a son. And even that promise was 23 years ago. Now, each and every time Abraham and Sarah would try to have children, they would be forced to remember the promise of God.

3. God Wanted Circumcision to Be an Object Lesson

A third reason I believe God specifically gave Abraham the sign of circumcision is because he wanted circumcision to be an object lesson. Again, I don’t intend to be crude. This is just what I meant when I said the Bible isn’t necessarily tame. In circumcision, there is a part of a male reproductive organ that is cut off. In this way, God wanted to teach his people what elsewhere the biblical authors call a “circumcision of the heart” (Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Rom. 2:25-29; Col. 2:8-12). Ultimately, circumcision is only a worthwhile practice insofar as it is a reflection of the heart. Circumcision tells us that there is a part of our heart that will need cut away, and it will be painful, but it is what sets us apart as the people of God. Circumcision of the flesh points to circumcision of the heart.

And yet it also shows us what divine judgement will look like for those who do not have a circumcised heart. For those who show themselves to not truly be members of the people of God, verse 14 says,

“Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Again, we have an object lesson of something being cut off. God is saying that something needs to be cut out of our hearts, but if we show that we have an uncircumcised heart, we will be cut off from his people and his blessing. That’s not a place I want to be.

4. God Wanted Circumcision to Point us to Jesus

But this is where we are met with wonderful news. Because the last thing I’ll mention is that God was intentional with the sign of circumcision because he wanted circumcision to point us to Jesus. Although Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, he was whipped and beaten, left to die on a cross by even his closest followers. On the cross, Jesus took upon himself the sin of all of his people, bearing the very wrath of God to the point where he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34). On the cross, Jesus received the promised judgement for breaking the covenant, even though he was blameless. On the cross, Jesus bore our sin and shame so that we could bear his righteousness before God. Circumcision reminds us of the faithfulness of God and points us to the one who was cut off so that we will never have to be. This passage teaches us, Christian and non-Christian alike, to return to Christ. Look to him as the one who bore the judgement of God for you and was cut off for you so that you could receive his grace. Return to him today!

CONCLUSION - OUR END OF THE BARGAIN (THE COVENANT REMEMBERED)

But we’re not done yet! Because with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a new covenant was instituted. And the New Testament makes it clear in a number of places that in this new covenant, circumcision is no longer a requirement for God’s people (Acts 15; Gal. 2:1-3; 5:1-11; 6:11-16). So what? Are we left without a sign of the New Covenant? What is our sign of the faithfulness of God? The Apostle Paul answers this very question for us in Colossians chapter 2. He writes,

11 In [Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Did you catch that? Paul draws a direct line in this passage from circumcision to baptism. What circumcision was in the old covenant, baptism is for us in the new covenant. The reason we celebrate baptism together as the church is not primarily because we’re celebrating someone’s faith, although we are thankful for that. The main reason we celebrate baptism together as a church is because it is the sign that God has given to his Church to remember his faithfulness. That’s also why Christians don’t get baptized more than once. If your faith has wavered since your baptism, or even if you realize that you actually became a Christian after your baptism, you don’t need to feel as though the first one didn’t count, because the effectiveness of your baptism doesn’t rest on your faith, but on the faithfulness of God. Because that’s true, if you’ve been baptized, you have the joy of remembering the faithfulness of God to you every time you think about your baptism or get to see someone else be baptized.

This week, I was listening to a sermon and was reminded of a story about Martin Luther. Martin Luther was one of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation, living 500 years ago. And particularly near the end of his life, Luther battled severe depression and anxiety. There were times when he would be plagued by lies that he believed to be demonic oppression. And in these moments of substantial attack, while throwing ink bottles across the room and writing in chalk on his desk, he was known to have regularly screamed the phrase, “I am baptized!” And he would do that for two main reasons. He would do that to remind himself that his life didn’t belong to him and certainly not to the enemy of our souls. His life belonged only to God. Baptism, like circumcision, is a brand of ownership. But he would also do that to remind himself of the faithfulness of God. Luther’s baptism, like ours ought to be, was a reminder to him that he could always look back on and remember the way that God’s promises are true. That God is faithful. That just as he brought us from death to life, he will surely remain faithful to the end.

So here’s the call. One to those of us here who have not been baptized, and one to those of us who have been. To the unbaptized, there are some of you here who have not been baptized because you aren’t a Christian. We’re so glad you’re here. I just want you to know that the story of Jesus that I mentioned earlier – the story of God taking on flesh, living a perfect life, and then being cut off for the sake of his people so that they could have his perfection applied to their account – that good news is for you today. Turn to Jesus and receive his invitation of love and acceptance and faithfulness forever. He stands with open arms, ready to receive you. And so do we.

Then there are some here this morning who have not been baptized, but who are Christians. If that’s you, particularly to the adults in the room, what are you waiting for? I don’t say this to guilt you or to pressure you by any means. Think and pray about it, certainly. But God is so kind and has extended to us a way that we can experience his grace and always remember his faithfulness. So that you, like Luther, can look back on your baptism in confidence that God will be faithful to carry you home. Baptism is a gift of grace. What’s not to love about that? And I’ll just say, if you’re hearing this and you’ve been on the fence about baptism and are starting to think that it might be time, we’ve got a baptism Sunday coming up this fall, and any one of our pastors would be overjoyed to talk to you about participating in that. So please reach out and let someone know that you want to be baptized.

Finally, to those of us here that have been baptized. I would encourage you to remember your baptism. Again, we need to see baptism as more than simply a sign of our faith, or as we sometimes hear, an outward sign of an inward reality. It is that, but it is so much more than that. Our baptism is so much less about us and so much more about God. It is not a motion to mindlessly go through as a believer. It is a sign given by God so that we could remember his great faithfulness to his people, to you.

Before we close, look with me at the end of Genesis chapter 17, starting in verse 22:

22 When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. 23 Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26 That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. 27 And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

It's been 23 years and this chapter ends, and God still hasn’t given Abraham the son he promised. But he’s given him a sign. He’s given him a sign that says, “in the waiting, when you struggle to believe, and everything inside of you and outside of you is telling you that you have every reason to doubt God’s promises, this sign says that you can trust him. You can remember the way that he’s been faithful in the past and know that he will be faithful to the end.” Church, we serve a God we can trust. A God who not only makes promises, but keeps his promises. Our God sees it through to the end.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father…

[1] Duguid, Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality, 76.

[2] I got this idea from a sermon this week, but I don’t remember who was preaching (Thune, DeYoung, or Looloian)

Sermon Discussion Questions

What are some things that you are waiting for that are hard to wait for?
Have you ever struggled to remember that you can trust God? When this happens, how do you remember his faithfulness?
When we become a Christian, we realize that our lives are no longer our own. What are some things that need to change in your life because God is now the one making the calls in your life?
Have you been baptized? What did Noah say that baptism should remind us of? How does that deepen our understanding of what baptism is?

GenesisGenesis 17

Noah Gwinn