Well, good morning. Bob, before we start broadcasting and you probably already started, it's OK. I just want to encourage each of you to continue to pray for Kathy and James Neal. I was blessed to be able to visit Kathy a few times this week, and I was with her yesterday morning. And let me tell you, she is. She's amazing. She really is. She's a strong woman. And James, his prognosis is not looking good, but God is providing every step of the way. But that doesn't mean this isn't hard. So just continue to pray for Kathy. Pray for James. Yesterday, he told me he was tired. And imagine that of James. He's been tired for a while. How many of you brought a Bible this morning? So y'all didn't bring a Bible. I only heard like three people brought their Bible. If you brought a Bible, please open it to the book of Genesis. And we're going to begin, we're going to be in chapter 17. And as you turn there, this title of my sermon is More Than Words. You know, talk is cheap, isn't it? I'm incredibly blessed to have four beautiful children now, and my three oldest ones are always obedient. Even Ben agreed, nope, nope. And as a dad, especially, it's hard to be a preacher's kid because what your dad does then is he preaches to you. And so, but I'll hear sorry sometimes. And it's hard when you've heard sorry for the same thing over and over. Sorry, I try to teach them, sorry means something. Sorry means I'm not going to do it anymore. It should be the same between us and the Lord. talk should between us and the Lord should not be cheap but let me I want to look this morning at how talk from the Lord is not cheap when he makes promises God fulfills those promises and our faith in God's ability to bless us and carry out his promises Our faith in that always, always, always, always needs strengthening. It always does. We're no different than the disciples that Jesus patiently trained, and Jesus lamented over them over and over, and you see it several times through the book of Matthew where he says, O ye of little faith, we're no different from them. We struggle with believing God's words to be true and powerful in our lives. We're no different from Abraham, who tried, as we saw last time we were in the book of Genesis, who tried to play God and took matters into his own hands and made a total mess with that situation with Hagar. But even before that, Abram brought Lot. when he was supposed to leave all his household behind. Lot is the possible heir. He tried to put forth his servant Eliezer, the one whom God would fulfill his promises in. And then he and Sarah had this baby through Hagar. But God was going to accomplish his will and his plans in his time and his own way. If we look in verse 1, it says, "...and when Abram was ninety years old and nine..." Go just back to the previous verse in chapter 16, verse 16, it says, "...Abram was fourscore and six years old when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram." Thirteen years have passed! Thirteen years have passed since Abram and Sarah tried to play God and come up with their own path to fulfilling God's promise. Thirteen years. About 23 years has passed since God gave Abram this promise that he was going to be the father of many nations. But what we see first in this text is that God does not forget His promises. God does not forget his promises. And I love that this is in spite of our failures. Abram had many failures. We've been going over them over and over. We just talked about many of his failures up to this point. His failure to really trust God and to believe that God was gonna keep his promise. But God does not forget his promise despite our failures. And so if we go back to verse one, And we're just going to walk through this text. This is rich and I want to try and get as much of it as we can out of it. We will skip a little bit here and there, but we're going to go through it just really kind of verse by verse. In verse one, when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. He immediately gives him his identity. I am the Almighty God. In fact, he uses a name, El Shaddai, for the first time we see El Shaddai. How many Bible students here want to tell me what El Shaddai means? I mean, I expect it here, but Lester, just spit it out. He's dying to say it. I know it. It means God is sufficient. He is the all-sufficient One. He is the all-powerful One. He is the Almighty God. He has all the power. This is the God who makes things happen by the means of His majestic power and His might. We've talked, I've talked many times about how God loves whenever he's got the right time to show up and show off. And I talk about, I've used my relationship with Melissa to liken what God likes to do whenever she needs a jar of pickles opened and she just isn't mighty enough to, she hands it over to me and I get to, you know, I get to show up and show off and pop that jar of pickles open. God loves to do this. He loves to be the all-sufficient one. And so he's coming to Abram, telling him, I have not forgotten my promise. I am the almighty God and I can fulfill this promise. I am the almighty God. He gives him his identity and then he gives him a command. He says, walk before me and be thou perfect. My goodness. Think about if God had come physically before your presence and you can hear His voice vibrating the drums in your ears. And Him saying to you, walk before me and be thou perfect. It reminds me of 1 Peter 1.16, be ye holy as I am holy. This doesn't mean moral perfection. It just means complete. It describes someone who is wholeheartedly committed and wholeheartedly given to a relationship with God. Abram Kuruvilla says this, he says, Abram was to be in his heart and soul, wholly oriented with the Lord and wholly committed to his way, with no subsidiary loyalties, adulterating his commitment. My goodness. What God is telling him is, listen, no longer put faith in these other plans that you're trying to hatch. Trust completely in me. Trust me fully and walk with me. Walk before me. Have a relationship. Engage yourself in this promise. Walk as though you believe and live it. That's what we're called to do if you didn't know this. It's written in the New Testament, 1 Peter 1 16, we just read this, be ye holy as I am holy. We're also to walk with the Lord. We're to walk in the light as he is in the light. And then we have fellowship one with another. Listen, this is not new to us. I mean, it was new to Abram, but it's not new to us. Still applies to us. God gives in verse two, verse two, He gives a promise, he re-gives that promise. He says, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly. If you go back after this morning's sermon and you look, there are nine times in this text where he references this as my covenant. God is saying my covenant. He's not talking to Abram and saying this is our covenant. This is my covenant. This is God's covenant. God is the one who will make all of this happen. God is the one who guarantees its execution. God is the almighty God, and he's the one who's gonna see it through. And then God gets specific with Abram. He's repeated this promise, and he's given Abram a command, and now he's going to get even more specific. It says, Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee. And thou shalt be a father of many nations, and neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee." Well, so he changes his name. Whenever we started this study looking at the life of Abraham, I told you there was gonna be times when I said Abraham and Abram, and I'm probably still gonna mess it up sometimes. I'm still talking about the same guy. The reason why we call him Abraham is because God changes his name. God, who is sovereign, he's the one who gives Abram's life meaning, and so he's giving it more meaning. The name Abram means exalted father. You know, can you imagine how embarrassing it might've been? Because names carry meaning, especially in this period of history, it carried meaning. And for Abram to be among his peers and for them to see that his name means exalted father, knowing that his name means exalted father, and they might ask him, what is your name? And he says, exalted father. And they go, man, what a wonderful name. How old are you? Oh, I'm 99. Are you married? Oh yeah, I'm married. How many children do you have? Well, I don't have any children. That could have been embarrassing, wouldn't you think? But then he changes, God changes his name and he ramps it up from exalted father and adding that H, this name becomes father of a multitude. Can you imagine the years of embarrassment for Abram? One morning he comes down to breakfast, comes to the tent, the maids in the back cooking bacon and eggs. Abram sits down and he says, I have an announcement to make. So everyone there becomes quiet. And he says, I have changed my name. And they go, oh, okay, finally. He couldn't take it. The old man couldn't take it anymore. He changed it from being a father about an exalted father, except for this child from Hagar. He said, my name is no longer going to be exalted father. Now it's going to be father of a multitude. They're going to go, man, Abram is cracked, man. He's lost his mind. He's an old man. He can't do it. He's only got this one child by Hagar, and now he's getting ideas that he's going to be a father of multitudes. But it wasn't Abram who was going to have to make that happen. It was God. God. God continues in verses 6 and 7. He said, I will make thee exceedingly fruitful. Wow. And I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee and their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." There's some key aspects to this promise. There's the fact that there's going to be many nations that come out of the loins of Abraham. Many nations. That's more than just one kid, isn't it? I mean, we're talking many descendants. He's already described it multiple times. One time is the grains of sand, countless, or stars in the sky, countless. He's talking about an abundant amount of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But also, it's not just a promise of nations, it's a promise of kings. He is going to father a nation that's going to have kings in it. Royalty is going to come into his family. Also, for the first time in all the promises that God has given to Abram, this is the first time that he says that it is an everlasting covenant. It is a perpetual promise that is going to go on and on and is still in effect today. And then I think I love this last aspect most, that God was going to be God to Abraham, and he was going to be God to his children. That relationship was going to be intimate. He says, I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee. I'm going to take that little letter A out of there. He is going to be God to them. He is going to be who he is to them. And he closes in verse 8, this first repetition of his promise. He said, I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God. God does not forget his promises. And he is God Almighty, able to fulfill every one of them to the nth degree. But Abraham, I gotta get that right, I'm gonna have to work on that. Abraham, we see God is not forgetful in his promises, but Abraham is expected to buy into God's promise. Follow with me in verse nine. And God said to Abraham, thou shalt keep my covenant. Abraham is expected to buy into God's promises. thou shalt keep my covenant therefore thou and thy seed after thee and their generations this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee every man child among you shall be circumcised well we bring in circumcision we're going to talk a little bit about this Circumcision, of course, is the cutting off of the extra skin. It involves pain and blood. It's kind of a nasty business, I would say. But this is for Abram, this is a sign of this covenant for Abram to buy in. This is a sign that he's expected to give. In verse 11, and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. John MacArthur says this, he says, the symbolism had to do with the need to cut away sin and to be cleansed. It was the male organ which most clearly demonstrated the depth of depravity because it carried the seed that produced depraved sinners. Thus, circumcision symbolized the need for a profoundly deep cleansing to reverse the effects of sin. I don't know about all of that, but I know that the Bible says in the New Testament, it says it in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, in Jeremiah 4, 4, and in Romans chapter 2, that that circumcision isn't supposed to just be a physical sign, it's supposed to be a mark of how we live in our heart. We're to be circumcised in our heart. Deuteronomy 36, it says, in the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live. Listen, the expectation for Abraham is to buy in with this act of circumcision. God has made us promises as well. He does not forget His promises, and the expectation is that we buy in. Listen, when you put your faith in Christ, and you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and you go and are baptized in these waters, I met a new friend this morning, Brother Keith, who's visiting our church, and he told me that he was baptized in this baptistry back in 1970-ish, around that time, 1972, yeah. When he got baptized, That wasn't just an opportunity to do something cool that everybody thought was cool. It's a declaration of an inward commitment. It's an outward expression of an inward commitment to love and to follow Christ. I wear this wedding ring. I have a rubber wedding ring now because I got too fat to wear the one I was wearing before that. But I wear it. When I take it off, it doesn't mean I'm not married. It's just an outward expression of my inward commitment to love my wife until my last breath or until hers. Listen, this relationship between us and God, we're to buy into it. We're to give ourselves and live in a way that demonstrates that. Jeremiah 4-4, "'Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Lest my fury come forth like fire and burn that none can quench it because of your evil doings.'" Or Romans, what it says in Romans chapter 2. Paul makes it very clear, he says, "...for circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law. But if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keepeth the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?" Let's go down to verse 29, "...but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart." in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." Abraham was expected to buy in. It was gonna cost Abraham something. For us to follow him, we are to buy in. We have to, and it might cost you something. We no longer perform circumcision. The first century church got a little confused about the need of circumcision. They thought Gentiles had to be circumcised to become church members, and that wasn't true. They got a little confused about that. Well, we don't have circumcision. We now have baptism. But baptism isn't even called a sign or a seal of this covenant. It's just an act of obedience. It is a reflection of our circumcised heart willing to devote ourselves to living for the promise keeper. Verses 12 and 13, we see that this circumcision is to be applied, this buying in is to be applied to all of Abraham's household. And that verse 14, it says, and this uncircumcised man, child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He hath broken my covenant. There's a penalty. There's a penalty for not buying in and just to make it short and sweet, the choice is be cut or be cut off. Listen, buy in, You're not going to experience the blessings that God has promised to you. You may not experience the fullness of his blessings. Many of you and most of you, I think, are saved and have put your faith in Christ and you've been baptized, maybe here or another place, but you've made this promise to follow the Lord, but you might be missing out on a lot of blessings in your life. Let me tell you, the reason why may be because you're not bought into living for God. I was talking last night with my middle son, John. John was asking me about eternity. We talked about how when you get saved, in John 3.36 it says, he that hath believed on the Son hath everlasting life. That means from that moment, our eternal life begins from that moment of salvation. We are, those of us who are saved are already in eternity. We're already experiencing eternal life. We're still also experiencing a mortal life that will, this body will pass away, but we're already experiencing eternal life. Our identity has completely changed. We have an entirely new epoch taking place in our life, an entirely new paradigm existing in our life. We no longer live a life of sin, and we have sin in our life even to save people. I'm talking about our life is no longer defined by our sin, it's defined by the grace of God. And I'm just gonna tell you, If you don't buy into living for Him and allowing this eternal change that's taken place in your heart to show up in your life, you'll miss out on the fullness of God's blessings. You might think, well, that's a little petty of God. No, it's not. Not at all. If you're a saved Christian, you're not a member of a church, you're going to miss out on all the blessings of being a church member. You might think, well, I've had some things that weren't such a blessing as a church member. Yeah, that didn't have anything to do with Jesus. That had to do with sin. I gotta keep going. We see that God does not forget his promises despite our failures. We talked about how Abraham is expected to buy into God's promises. That if he doesn't or those in his household do not, then they'll be cut off. And third thing we're left with in this chapter is that many doubt that God can fulfill his promises. Follow with me. Verse 15, then God said to Abraham, Abraham, as for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. So her name changes. And then Sarah, for the first time, is shown to not be an accessory to this promise, but an integral part of God's plans. Her role is defined as part of this covenant promise. Her role is not to be dismissed. He says, continuing in verse 16, I will bless her and give thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of people shall be of her. She's going to have an integral role. This failure that they had in chapter 16 was a failure to understand that God's covenant with Abram included Sarah. It included his wife. She just wasn't a side piece or an accessory. That promise of a seed included her. The two of them have not fully grasped this up to this point, so God here makes it explicit. What I think we get out of this is that we're not to doubt God's ability. Look at verse 17. Then Abram fell upon his face. That's a good place to start. Then it says he laughed. And he said in his heart, shall a child be born unto him that is 100 years old? And shall Sarah that is 90 years old bear? Abram is expressing a little doubt. I don't know that he's doubting God at this point. He's just doubting that it could actually happen. But I love how Romans 4 kind of set straight his attitude. It says, in being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. Paul is directly referring to this portion of Scripture. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, God was able also to perform. Abram is dealing with the incredulity of this pronouncement, that him and Sarah are going to have a baby in their old age. But Scripture says he is fully persuaded. I can't help but think of that phrase and wonder, am I fully persuaded? Am I fully persuaded that if I If I go and teach all nations, if I embrace an outward focus of evangelism and sharing the gospel, am I fully persuaded that God will bring the increase? I wonder, are we fully persuaded that in that same great commission where he says, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth, and I will never leave thee, I will be with you always," is what he says, even to the end of the world. Are we fully persuaded of those facts? That he truly does have all the power? And that he will never leave us? He will always stay with us? I would say that if we were fully persuaded, then we would maybe be more fully engaged in sharing the gospel. Y'all are quiet. Either you're asleep or you, like me, are dealing with this reality. Listen, the call of the church is to share the gospel. This church is to be a metaphorical light in this community. It should be blinding, shining into the darkness of the community around us. Yet, I don't know. Abram says in verse 18, Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. God has a word about that. God said in verse 19, Sarah, thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed. Amen. Be fully persuaded. I can do this. And thou shalt call his name Isaac. Hey, I'm not just gonna give you a son, he's gonna have a name. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him. I think Abram and his laughter, I think it's just a, it's kind of a, it's a symbol of faith, our struggle to have true faith. We struggle, it's natural for us to struggle trusting God. But Abram, I love how Abram responds, and we'll talk about that here in a little bit. Abram follows through. Abraham buys in. Let's talk a little bit about what it says next in verse 20. As for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. Verse 21, but my covenant will I establish with Isaac. Ishmael is that picture of the flesh. Isaac is the covenant son. I will establish my covenant with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this time next year. So God gives him far more explicit information about this promise than he's given him before. And he tells him, yeah, you may doubt, you may have been struggling, you may have been trying to hatch your own plans, but it's going to be a son of Sarah. It's going to be Isaac. It's going to be within the next year and you better buy in. You better buy in. What we see, we see Abraham buy in. He struggles. There's a struggle of faith there for him. And I experience that every day, and I think you probably do too. But he still buys in. Look in verse 23. And Abram took Ishmael, his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the self same day as God had said unto him. Everyone born in his house, everyone bought with his money were circumcised. And Abraham, verse 24, Abraham was 90 years old and nine when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael, his son, was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the self, same day, was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael, his son. In verse 27, all the men of his house, born in the house and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him. Abraham, Abraham who had He'd always had a backup plan. Abraham buys in completely. And you may ask, what does all this have to do with us? And I've already talked some about that. But this charge to Abraham to walk before God and to be blameless is the same charge he's given to you and me. You know, Jesus Jesus didn't have to come, but Jesus came. Jesus came to this dirty, you know, I don't know how they lived without air conditioning. Jesus came, he could have come at a time with air conditioning, couldn't he? But he came at this time, at that appointed time, when Israel was in bondage, or they were under the thumb of Rome. He came whenever His people were in oppression. He was born in a small town to poor people. He lived this life. He died on a cross. He shed His blood for you and me. And when we put our faith and trust in Him, I don't know about you, but if there was someone, I've never been in the military, But had I been in the military and been in war and someone give their life for me, jump on top of a grenade to save my life, I think that would change something about me. I would probably live the rest of my life trying to live up to the fact that someone allowed me to live when I could have died right alongside them. Yet Jesus, He came, He was on that cross, endured incredible anguish and agony. He gave His blood, and God the Father gave His Son, so that we might experience that eternal life that begins at the moment of salvation, and experience all the blessings, many blessings in this life, and then abundantly more in the next life. because of his covenant promise. This same promise that he's talking about to Abraham is the same promise by which we're saved, because it was through this seed of Abraham that we were gonna receive a king who was gonna be the savior. I don't know about you, but as I said before, if someone, if I'm in combat and someone jumps on a grenade, I would live the rest of my life trying to live up to that wonderful act of salvation. Yet, Christ went to the cross for me. Christ has saved me not just from a temporal death of some pain and anguish from shrapnel or bullets or whatever else you want to add to the horrors that you can experience in this life. He has saved us from an eternity separated from the blessings of God in a place called hell. I don't know about you, but I want my commitments and my prayers to God to mean more than words. We should live for Him. Listen, you and I can't do it. He says, walk before me. What did He say? Walk before me and be thou perfect. You're not going to live moral perfection. You're going to blow it sometimes. I'm going to blow it. I've blown it sometimes. That's not what He wants. He wants us fully persuaded and fully committed to living for Him. My question for you and for myself is what are we gonna do with this information? This example we see in the life of Abraham, are we gonna, we're gonna have a struggle of faith. You might wonder, what does God want me to do in walking before Him? What does He want me to do in buying into this life of living for Him? Could I just ask you, if you don't know, read your Bible. Come to church on Wednesday night and listen to the Bible study. Come to church on Sunday morning before Sunday school begins and sit in the Sunday school lesson and listen to God's word taught to you. Come Sunday afternoon. and worship with the few of us who come. Walk before Him. Spend time with Him. Plead to Him to help you. I can't give you all the minute details of what God wants you to do, but He can if you'll go to Him. Let's stand together. Brother Eric's going to come, lead us in a verse of invitation, an opportunity, a moment where we set aside time to respond to His Word. And I'm just going to read this quote again for you. Abram Kuruvilla said, Abram was to be in his heart and soul, wholly oriented with the Lord, and wholly committed to his way with no subsidiary loyalties adulterating his commitment. Yeah.