This sermon was preached at University Park Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. For more information about UPBC, visit upbchouston.org. If you're heading to Children's Church, this is the time. Ages four to grade four are welcome to join back in this corner, this door to my right. Mr. Foley is welcoming you in and parents, if you haven't already signed your kids in, please take a minute to do that actually now so that we can have a record of them and then we can make sure that they, we know who's there and then you can pick them up at the conclusion of our time together. And for those of us who are staying in, let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 17. Genesis chapter 17. As we come to God's word, let's go to him in prayer and ask for his help. Let's pray together. God, we ask now that you would open our eyes and will we pray not just to your greatness, but also to our helplessness and weakness, our complete and utter need for you, Lord, not just for salvation, but for every single day, for every single breath, for us to keep believing, to keep persevering, to not shipwreck our faith. Lord, we need your grace, your sustaining and guiding grace. Lord, we need to see you as God Almighty in our lives. So often our picture of you is so small in comparison with just the largeness of our circumstances and need and whatever it is that's distracting us. Lord, show us our helplessness and your power, we pray, as we look at this passage. And Lord, we pray that we would be known as those people who are called out, who have abandoned trust in ourselves and put our complete trust in Christ. We would be marked out by that, by those who know you, by those who have followed after you publicly in baptism, in the way in which we gather as a church and coming to the Lord's table and proclaiming the good news. We pray you would do these things, Lord, that you would make this ministry, this body fruitful, that we would walk before you. We ask that you would do this now in Jesus' name, amen. I came across a song this week called Alone Yet Not Alone. We were thinking even last week about the whispers of the enemy. It's often in our hearts and minds that we'll question God's supremacy, his sufficiency, that he knows our situation. and insert those doubts of we are alone. I thought the lyrics were encouraging but I learned later that it was written by a quadriplegic and that made it all the more encouraging. I'm alone yet not alone. God's the light that will guide me home with his love and tenderness leading through the wilderness and wherever I may roam, I'm alone yet not alone. I will not be bent in fear He's the refuge I know is near. In his strength I find my own, by his faithful mercies shown, that so mighty is his shield, all his love is now revealed. That was written by Johnny Erickson Tada. And if you're not familiar with her story, she grew up hearing the Bible taught and read in a Christian environment, came to trust Christ as a teenager at the age of 14, But she said she slipped into a very self-centered phase in her life where she described kind of her life as being lived like she had done God a great big favor by becoming a Christian and now he owed her all of these other things like an easy life, a handsome boyfriend, good grades. And so she really became convicted by that and just before she was leaving for college, she prayed that God would open her eyes to see that she would see him for who he is. And so if you know the story, she gets invited by her sister to a beach trip before she's leaving to head off and she sees a raft out in the water and she swims out to this raft and she stands up on the raft and dives off into very, very shallow water. and the impact severs her spinal cord. And the thing I hadn't thought about much is thinking about her story is that she was there laying under the water, unable to get up. She's completely paralyzed immediately. And she found out later that no one actually saw her dive. And so no one was aware of her being under the water. And so a crab bites her sister's toe and her sister turns around and kind of screams and sees Johnny under the water and saves her out. And one of the questions she would ask later is, for what purpose? For what purpose was I saved, God? After this terrible accident, she learned that she would be a quadriplegic, have no use of her arms or legs. And she just asked God, is this your idea of answering my prayer? And she sinks into this deep depression. And so how do you go from someone, you know, was in that position to where she is today. Still believing, still speaking and encouraging people who are dealing with these alone and suffering questions, when every day she has chronic pain, every day she feels unable to function as a normal person, she's been through breast cancer, She describes every morning as being pushed into the arms of God. From the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes back to sleep, she is desperate for God saying, I can't do life, please help me. I can't make it through the day without you. And so she knows the God of Abraham that we see here in Genesis 17, and that's where we find ourselves in our study through Abraham's life, kind of this journey of seeing what faith looks like. God calls this man, this pagan man from his homeland, and he goes. God makes a covenant with him in chapter 15 and promises to keep it. And now in chapter 17, God is gonna confirm that covenant with a sign. And we'll see Abram believe and obey. But the main point in these verses, in these chapters, isn't actually the faith of Abraham, although it is clearly evident, or even the details of the covenant, which we're gonna think about today in detail, It's actually the revelation of God himself, that God reveals himself as one who can be trusted, a God who saves, God Almighty. That's the theme of chapter 17, seeing and knowing this God, El Shaddai. You don't have to be a quadriplegic to know and depend on Almighty God. The scriptures teach us that spiritually, We are those whose hands and legs don't work to save us, to bring us true joy and contentment. Abram had to learn that, to learn to trust God when there was absolutely no other way that God is almighty. I wonder if we live that way, beloved, if we live before a God who is almighty. He reveals himself to us and says, come to me, trust me, I won't fail you, I won't leave you. That's what this passage is about, knowing and living before Almighty God. And so we're gonna walk through it together, chapter 17, and make some observations. And then at the end, we're gonna circle back and say some specific things about circumcision, which is a theme in this chapter, the relationship between circumcision and baptism. which is something we want to think about as well, and the way that the covenants relate, too. So doing some biblical theology together that's relevant for us as we look at this text now on this side of the cross. If you look at the entire chapter, you're going to notice that it breaks down into two basic halves, and they really are like mirror images of one another. And so you can sort of see them in an A, B, C, D pattern. And so it begins like this. Yahweh comes to Abram to confirm his promise for descendants. That's like letter A. You see that in verses one to two. And then Abram falls on his face, which is a good thing to do when you interact with the living God. See that in verse three, that's B. Part C, God promises seed and land for Abram and he gives him a new name. verses 4 to 8. And then part D, we see the sign of the covenant given, which is circumcision. And we learn about the details of that in verses 9 to 14. That's the first half of the chapter. And then you can just flip it over. And it's almost the same thing happens in the second half of the chapter. Part A, you see God has an intention to bless Sarah with descendants, Sarai. After this, we can actually call them Abraham and Sarah, by the way. Their names both change. And so we can actually call them that. She's going to have descendants, verses 15 to 16. Then part B, Abram falls on his face again. And then God promises a son for Sarah, she gets a new name, part C. And then the sign of the covenant is actually enacted, circumcision happens in part D, as Abram circumcises himself and his household. So you've got kind of confirmation, worship, new name, sign. And they all point to this God who is almighty. And so let's walk through it together beginning in verse one. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. There's a lot in these verses. It's hard to really begin and not think about his age. at the very beginning here, 99 years old when this encounter takes place. So in chapter 16, we left him off, so this was 13 years removed from the events of what we saw last time in chapter 16 with the Hagar incident. So that's… he was 86 years old then. It's been 24 years since Genesis chapter 12, when God called him and he leaves Haran, when he was 75. So I just want to point out and remind us, this is a long time to be doing crazy things based on promises that have not yet been fulfilled. A long time, a quarter of a century. You just have to wonder at that and think about what that was like, and I think that's gonna help provide some sympathy for Abram and for Sarah as we go through the story, hanging on to the promises of God for that long. But we understand more about how he does it by understanding who it is that's making these promises, that's key. Look again at that phrase in verse one, the Lord appeared to Abram. Just let that fall on you. The Lord, Yahweh, appeared. We've just seen this encounter with the angel of the Lord in chapter 16 and some discussion about exactly who that was. There's no question on who this is. This is Yahweh, the Lord, who appears to Abram, the maker of heaven and earth. appears to him, the self-existent one, the holy one, the only God of the universe. And he graciously reveals himself to this man. And he does so through a particular name, a new name. I am God Almighty, he says. In Hebrew, this is translated El Shaddai, Almighty God. This is the first time this name of God is introduced, and we'll see it as a… kind of a favorite with the patriarchs as it's… as we go through, God revealing to Himself that way. Why did God need to know, or why did Abram, rather, need to know this particular attribute of God? Especially when he's looking around, seeing the discrepancy between the promises of God, you will have a son, you will have a multitude, descendants, and I'm 99, my wife is barren, and no child yet. And it's been a quarter of a century. Because God is showing Abram, I am God Almighty. I am God Almighty. After all of this waiting, I am still faithful. God is removing, through this time, every possible avenue for human credit, isn't he? For this whole story, for what's about to happen. All human effort, all is completely exhausted. Abram is left powerless, a spiritual quadriplegic, so that he can now see where true power lies. So that he can see and trust God Almighty. and that God would receive all of the glory. This God that created the world out of nothing is now stepping into that world to do it again. I'm gonna bring something out of nothing, Abram. Life from the dead. And it's here that we learn more about the covenant relationship between God and Abram. Before, Abram was asleep, that was his role. He was asleep in the covenant ceremony in chapter 15 when God walked through the cut pieces of animals, as if to say, God will uphold his end of the covenant and Abram's end, this will come to pass. But here we see, well, Abram isn't actually supposed to be just a passive bystander. Yahweh is calling him to this active part in the covenant. This is a reminder for us as we balance our responsibility as believers, as we love the book of Romans and we love the book of James, two completely different emphasis on the same reality. Yahweh gives two stipulations here. First, he says, walk before me and second, be blameless. Walk before me and be blameless so that I can make this covenant with you. Now, walking before me is just a picture of living in light of who God is. Walk before me. Walk always as if I am always with you, always before you, as if you're always right in front of me. Always in my presence. Friend, I wonder what would be different about my life and your life if we walked this way, as if we walked before God all of the time, as if he had actually appeared to us and was with us all of the time. What would that change about our moment to moment decisions? Those times when we know that we want to mentally and physically sometimes escape from reality and maybe do things that we wouldn't do in view of others. God is our ultimate accountability partner, isn't he? He is always there, always seeing us. There's nowhere that we can go that is not before him. But there's a way to walk that way, in light of that, to know Almighty God. Abram, you're to live that way. Live like a representative of me, who walks before others, who goes out in front and represents me. and who is also blameless. And the meaning here is just complete, morally whole. Only this kind of life properly represents God. And we know already from our study of Abram's life, he has fallen short of this. And if you've read ahead, you know, he's gonna continue to fall short of this. God is seeking an obedient son, an obedient representative. He's been doing that since the garden. He was doing that with Noah, and now he's doing it with Abram. But Abram and his sons, his descendants, will fall short of that task. And you could argue they become actually increasingly worse. One of them is named a deceiver. Nevertheless, obedience is expected. It's expected as part of God's covenant for his true covenant partner. And so we're left to wonder, how could Abram stand up to this task? And so his response is telling, isn't it? He falls on his face. Look at verse 3. Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring and after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God and to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God. How do we continue through suffering and difficulty apart from knowing this God? That's the way Abram makes it through. That's his persevering secret is this almighty God. He's known and experienced God. He's on his face before him. How does that impact fear and boldness and obedience and perseverance when we know this God? So he reiterates his promise to him. He's already made this promise. My covenant is with you, Abram. I'm gonna make you a father of a multitude of nations, not just a multitude, not just nations, a multitude of nations. And I want this promise to so shape you that I'm gonna change your name. I'm going to change your name. Your identity is gonna be tied into my very word to you, my promises to you. Friends, this is a great example of just God's divine authority as creator. No one else does this. Imagine this, right? Eileen Myers came into the office this week and she had little Gideon with her crawling around. Imagine if I brought Gideon up here and says, I know that Scott and Ileana, you have named your boy Gideon, but today I name him Gideon Bob. You know, they would be ready to leave, and they should be leaving. You all should be leaving at that point. I don't have that kind of authority. We don't do that here, right? That's not given over to me. But that's the kind of authority that we see happening. That's God just showing he's renaming and redirecting this person's totality of their life. When we are his, he can do what he wills. Abram means exalted father. Abraham means father of a multitude or multitudes. So whenever someone called him, whenever some wrote him a letter, there it was right before him. Multitude, hey, multitude of nations. Come here. Dear multitude of nations, dear Abraham. God just does this with names throughout the Bible and I love it. You know, it's not just that there's gonna be hordes of people that are gonna come from him, but notice kings are gonna come from him. And that's significant for us as we are reading the Bible Christianly. We're reading the Old Testament as Christians to think about kings that would come from Abraham. We've already seen Adam and Noah and kind of these king-like roles and even priest-king-like roles. And we've seen Abraham in that way as well. Matthew's gonna mention two of these kings that are really important in his introduction to his gospel. Matthew 1, 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and the son of David, the son of Abraham. I love the way that Matthew's genealogy goes straight back to Abraham, kings coming from him. All these promises that are given in these verses to Abraham are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The promise of land, the promise of seed, the promise of blessing fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The land, Canaan, seed, focus on the multitude of descendants, blessing, I will be your God, that pattern, all of those things fulfilled in Christ. That's the point of Galatians chapter three, verse 16. Galatians 3, 16, now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings. referring to many, but referring to one and your offspring who is Christ. That's how this covenant can be an everlasting covenant. It points not just to lots of physical descendants, but one seed who would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. Not just to the promise of blessing for Israel, but a final reconciliation between God and man, this cosmic reconciliation where we can pray and say, heavenly father, and he hears us. not just the physical land of Canaan, but the new heavens and new earth, the place that we will dwell with God forever, a heavenly city. All of the promises made are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, fulfilled in him, which makes total sense, doesn't it? Because he's the only one who could be a faithful covenant partner to what we see happening in Genesis 17. Only he is truly blameless. Only he is, he's the only blameless one to ever walk the earth. He's the only one who perfectly walks before the father and he lays down his life then to bring us to God. Friends, all of these wonderful promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, and you can be included in them as well when you turn from your sins and put your faith and trust in Christ. But here we find ourselves in the first book of the Bible, in the moment, with Abraham, charged to keep God's covenant, and in a very specific way, to display a very specific covenant marker called circumcision. So let's think about that together now, beginning in verse nine. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. We've seen already God give Noah a sign of His covenant in the rainbow. We're going to see later in the Mosaic covenant a sign given there with the Sabbath, and here we see circumcision instituted by God as a sign of the Abrahamic covenant. Now, like rainbows and the Sabbath, circumcision is not an unknown quantity. It existed before it was made into this covenant symbol. So just a little bit of the background, in Egypt circumcision was already around and in such a way that it would have been known actually to Abraham and to others. In Egypt circumcision was reserved for priests. for priests, it was an initiation rite set aside for a man for priestly service. So if you just know that background and think about what Abraham and his household would be thinking, what is this saying to us? We're gonna be priests, all of us, we're gonna be priests. We're gonna be set aside for God as his priests. Later in Israel's story, you'll know Israel is called God's firstborn son, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Continue there in verse 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. 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. 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." And so, parents, just a heads up, I'm gonna do my best to keep everything here on the top shelf for you to reach, and then maybe if you wanna hand it down later to kiddos, you can. circumcision as a sign we see is marking out males in particular as the ones that will be the ones passing on the seed, this line of Abraham from generation to generation. Customarily over In other cultures, this was done at puberty as kind of a rite of passage into manhood, but God instructs Abraham to do it on the eighth day, and I think that's significant for us as we think about what kind of theologically circumcision means. If you go back to the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth in six days. He rested on the seventh day. So there's a creation cycle that we see there, and so then what does the eighth day point to? if not new creation, if not a pointer to this main reality that we're gonna see later, even in the Old Testament, a spiritual circumcision, a circumcision of the heart. Moses is gonna say in Deuteronomy 30, verse six, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul that you may live. A very significant reality for us to see as we think about the meaning, the purpose of circumcision. But here we're seeing a command to circumcise what we might say in a more general sense. If you think about Abram in particular, he believed God. It was counted to him as righteousness. Then he receives the sign associated with that faith, which is circumcision. That would be the pattern that we would see even today if you're thinking about baptism. There's justification by faith, trusting in Christ, regeneration, followed by the sign of entering into this covenant with God, baptism. But for everyone else that we see kind of this practice, circumcision has a bit of a broader purpose, at least initially. And I think this is Paul's point in Romans 4. So I'm going to read some of these verses in Romans chapter 4 and just listen to the way that Paul is looking at the same passage we're looking at, thinking about circumcision and regeneration, and listen to the way that he puts it together, beginning in Romans 4, chapter 4, verse 9. In this blessing then, is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised so that righteousness would be counted to them as well and to make him a father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. And I know that's a lot to kind of bite off in one chunk. Go back and reflect on Romans 4, 9 to 12 later this afternoon. But clearly Paul was saying the pattern there was belief, faith, walk. And the sign followed that for Abraham. Philippians 3, 3, for we are the true or the real circumcision who worship by the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. So circumcision there or is here to point to something that is actually coming. A heart circumcision we would call maybe regeneration. And later we're gonna see a relationship with Christian baptism as well. It's not a one-to-one relationship. We don't just baptize infant boys. So we know that there needs to be some nuance in the way that we think about this. So we'll come back to that in a moment. Circumcision includes those born in Abraham's house, we read, and those bought with his money. Again, we're just hearing this reality that Abraham has gathered people to himself, servants and slaves, and he's purchased them. The Bible's really clear about that. And it's within that reality that God is gonna see his covenant love break forth. And so we're gonna see those people, even those servants and slaves, be welcomed in themselves to the covenant promises. They're included, even foreigners, which opens the door for people like you and me, Gentiles, coming into this door of God's covenant love. And anyone who's not circumcised, which I think there's a play on words there in verse 14, is cut off from his people. Now, that's the first kind of section, the first half of the passage. We'll come back and make some more kind of comments toward the end, but let's look at the second half, kind of the mirror image of what's going on in the first half in the second. So let's look at verse 15. And God said to Abraham, for as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 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 people shall come from her. So if you're just picking up reading this part of the Bible, it may not have the same, pack the same punch as if you had just studied Genesis 16, where Sarah had a plan to have Abraham's seed come through another woman, through Hagar. But since we've just read that, we know that God is directly addressing her and her kind of lack of faith there and saying, no, these promises are meant to come directly through you, Sarah, not someone else. through you, so she's needing to put that together. Multitude of nations, kings, this descendant who's gonna save the world all through you, and she gets a name change as well. Not really necessarily a meaning different for here as far as we can tell. Sarai and Sarah are generally the same, meaning princess. Princesses give birth to royalty and kings. So if Abraham at this point had kind of gotten up and started to get on his feet, he's ready to get back down on his face again. Verse 17. 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 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. I really relate to this guy. I really do. Now I know that Sarah is more famous for laughing, at God's promises than Abraham is, but notice who does it first. Her husband does it first. And we don't know the faith behind the laugh. I understand there's ways to laugh that don't necessarily communicate faithlessness. You know, when you're on a roller coaster, it's up and down and you're laughing and just kind of holding on in amazement and joy. Nevertheless, he is on his face laughing. And it is, in a sense, humanly comical, what God is promising. If you just put yourself there, you can see it. But he does seem to begin to drift, doesn't he? Into a kind of a plan B mode. Well, okay, what do we have before us? Well, we've got Ishmael. He's right here, 13 years old. He's my seed. Lord, how about this one? We can just skip all this crazy miracle stuff. Something out of nothing. Here he is. Can't he live before you? Same language as what God called him to earlier in the chapter. Can't he live before you? And God says very clearly and graciously, no. Verse 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. So here we're just introduced to Isaac, whose name means he laughs. Again, you can't say God doesn't have a sense of humor with these names. He laughs, that's his name. But Ishmael's not gonna be forgotten, Abraham. I hear you, God is so pastoral and kind with Abraham here. He's thinking about his son. Verse 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 12 princes, 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. So Ishmael will be greatly blessed, Abraham, with a multitude of descendants, almost this parallel kind of group with 12 princes, kind of like the 12 tribes of Israel or 12 disciples, however far you want to take that. But the promise, the seed of blessing to the nations will not come through him, it will come through Isaac. This is God's sovereign choice. But he says the waiting for this has gone on long enough. Sort of. In a year, it will happen. This time next year, Isaac will be born. And then we read verse 22, and when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Now, we don't know what that was like. I'd love to be there and see how he's speaking with God and how God is coming down and coming out. Our imaginations run wild. But we know this, it was a powerful, clear experience for Abraham because of his immediate obedience, immediate obedience, unhesitating. Verse 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. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael, his son, was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. That very day, Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him. Again, just as much as you can, Imagine this. This is no small task. We don't know how many people Abraham had under his care. We know from earlier he had at least 318 fighting men in chapter 14, but likely there's much, much more. And this isn't something he said, okay, you guys should do this. He starts with himself. at age 99. I'm not going to get into all the thought processes there of what that would be going through his mind, but just wow. And then he circumcises Ishmael, his 13 year old son, who from the description we saw last week is likely unsubmissive to him. He's this crazy man, this wild donkey of a man. How on board do you think he was with this idea? You're going to do what? Say what, now repeat that. And then all the other men that he went to go and explain this to, how convinced would he have had to been? How convincing would he have had to been to them? But notice how quickly, on the same day, it's repeated twice, verses 23 and 26. On the same day, he obeys this crazy, difficult task. Oh, that it would be like this with us, right? When we hear clearly from God and from his word, no matter what it is, we would be ready to do it. That day, we would be urgent to obey. We don't have to think about it. We don't have to call a meeting about it. We obey. We would even die for his sake. It's easy, it seems for Abraham, because he's seen El Shaddai, the living God Almighty. And as we think about missions, as we think about our marriages, as we think about hard things that God has ahead of us in life, and obedience in those situations, may we be like this. This chapter is a landmark in the Old Testament. It's not another covenant. to Abraham, but another stage in affirming or ratifying the covenant that was already made. And so earlier we used the illustration of marriage and I think that's helpful as you think about this covenant with Abraham. Chapter 12 is like the engagement, okay, where there's this proposal, God calls Abraham and he says yes. Chapter 15 is like the, kind of the ceremony where the covenant promises are enacted. Chapter 17, where we are now, we have the sign that accompanies those promises, like we might have wedding rings. And chapter 22, we're gonna see an oath that God gives to keep those promises, again, like the vows we would say at a wedding. It all comes from God's gracious intent to redeem a people for himself, to ultimately exalt Jesus. So that's the gist of what's happening. Now let's take a moment and step back and think about the big picture of this covenant sign and how it is relevant for us today, just for a few minutes. So first thing I wanna say about circumcision is that it's not an end to itself. Obviously we're not doing this as a connection to our ministry here at University Park Baptist Church. It's not an end to itself. It existed or exists to point to something greater. It's an arrow, it's not a target. And so most fundamentally, it points to the need for regeneration, the need that we all have to be born again. In the Old Testament, it's described as having our hearts circumcised. So Jeremiah 4 verse 3 says this, break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts. O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds. So repent of your sin and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The wind blows where it will. It gives us new hearts to see Christ and to respond to him in faith. That's the purpose, the main pointer of circumcision. And here in the Old Testament, we see that it's not limited only to those that would be believers. It was a sign pointing to the reality that was to come, to the new covenant. That's why Abraham can circumcise Ishmael, for example, who's not part of this kind of promised seed. It serves actually more almost as a national marker here to give an identity to ethnic Israel and set them apart from the other nations, clearly. But not all who took the mark of circumcision were true children of Abraham, true spiritual children. Certainly some were, but not all were. This is Paul's point in Romans 2, verse 28. He says, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. Third, circumcision also brings attention to the promise of the Messiah in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament. And so he who would descend from Abraham and all those who would be circumcised would be part of that group connected to him. They're looking for the seed of the woman with this physical marker, looking to him. And this is ultimately fulfilled in Luke chapter two, when Jesus himself on the eighth day is circumcised. Luke 2, 21. The line ends there. It was all pointing to him. And so circumcision is directly connected with Abraham's covenant, the old covenant, and it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And so many of our Paedo-Baptist friends, those that would baptize babies, see a close connection here between baptism and circumcision. And I just want to emphasize friends. Okay, there are many that would preach the same gospel that we preach, have a high view of membership, wanna see people come to know Christ, and yet we disagree about believers' baptism. Friends, fellow believers, but we disagree on a second order issue, believers' baptism, that affects the visibility of the local church, and so we don't go to church together. But we wanna affirm, we're not talking about a salvation issue here, unless we're talking about some kind of baptismal regeneration, where baptism saves you. So friends, and you can have a conversation among friends, they would say maybe even that baptism replaces circumcision, kind of in a one-to-one relationship. And so we just want to point out that we don't think that's right. And here are some reasons why, and I think we've already kind of mentioned them, right? The main reason is that we don't live under the old covenant anymore. We now live under the new covenant. And so two different covenants, two different signs, two different meanings. They're not the same. And so it's not just that we don't see evidence in the New Testament of infant baptism, although we don't. but that there's this theological issue behind it. And so Jeremiah 31, this is the, if you're thinking about where is the new covenant found in the old covenant, Jeremiah 31, 31. Easy to remember, Jeremiah 31, 31. I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer will each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. So the summary of that is new covenant people know God. That's what marks them out. A community marked out not by circumcision, but by knowing the Lord, by faith in Christ. And so we see in the New Testament a call to repent and believe and be baptized. Repent of your sin, believe on Jesus Christ who died and rose for you, and be baptized. Jesus said, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them. Baptizing them, the disciples. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So baptism isn't meant to point to something like circumcision that's coming in the future, but something that's already come. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and our union with him. So baptism is a sign that we are in union with Jesus Christ by faith. We've been buried with him and will be raised to newness of life, Romans 6, 4. This is the way Paul puts the two together in Colossians 2, verse 11. In him also you were circumcised, this is a New Testament letter to New Testament church, in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism in which you also were raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. And you who are dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh, God has made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." Circumcision pointed to the circumcision of Christ. and those that have been born again and repented of their sins and believe on him are marked out by this public profession of faith, believer's baptism. Friend, have you taken that step in your own life? Have you put off the body of the flesh and put your faith and trust in Christ? Have you followed him in believer's baptism, a public profession of your union with Christ? Have you had your trespasses forgiven? Is your record of debt canceled? If not, you can come to Christ. You can come to Christ today, right now. Put your faith and trust in Him alone. Turn from your sins, and He will save you. It's only through Him that this miracle of life from the dead can happen, something out of nothing, and we become a new creation. It's through knowing him that these lies of the enemy are revealed for what they are, that God doesn't know us really or care about us or he's not enough or his word isn't trustworthy that we're all alone. So beloved, we need to look to God's word and to El Shaddai, to God almighty, the one who comes to us and gives us a new heart and yes, even a new name. Revelation 2.17, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. So Jesus isn't calling us to be circumcised. Actually, he's calling us to be crucified, isn't he? To be crucified, to die to ourselves. and to live before him, to follow him, to take up our cross and follow him. Johnny Erickson Tata talks about a conversation that she had with her husband on the way home from a cancer treatment. And they're talking about suffering. And one of them described suffering like little splashes of hell that wake us up and remind us of God's grace, real vivid imagery. And the husband asked, well, if that's true, what are the splashes of heaven? What do those look like? Are those those times in our lives when things are going great and smooth and everything's rosy? And she said, no, I don't think so. I think it's those times when we find Jesus in the midst of our pain, in the midst of our suffering, when we truly meet him without a crutch and we're hanging on to him, purely him. Those are the glimpses, those are the splashes of heaven. The song that she wrote ends like this. He has bound me with his love. Watchful angels look from above. Every evil can be braved, for I know I will be saved. Never frightened on my own, I'm alone, yet not alone. Amen, let's pray. Lord, we worship you as God Almighty. Really, there is no other explanation that we would be gathered here today, all from so many different backgrounds and so many different stories, united around the good news that you have saved a sinful, fickle people like Abraham, that we are united by faith to these amazing promises, that you have purchased us with your own blood. Lord, we pray that as we witness here in this community and on this campus that's near us and in our neighborhoods, in our homes, Lord, that we would do so as those who have met with El Shaddai, who regularly are just knocked on our face as we think about your grace, your kindness to us, your power and might, or even the wrath that is coming to those that don't know you. May we just be compelled by that, Lord, to love others and to love you well. We thank you for this time together. We pray that you would bring about fruit from it. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.