What has covenant theology got to do with me? You'll see the title of the sermon is The Covenant of Promise. And you may have never thought about that word very much, covenant. You may have not thought it that important or perhaps you don't really want to think about circumcision too much either. But we're in a series in Genesis and we don't avoid different texts. We don't avoid the hard text or skip it or go around it or just skim through it. The word of the Lord stands forever. What does Genesis 17 say to us? What does covenant theology got to do with us? The word covenant is repeated on repeat in nine verses, I think about 13 times in this passage alone. must have something to do with us. What has covenant theology got something to do with us? As we read of that moment in ancient time, of a circumcision as a sign, promises read about, well, people of God's covenant promises. You could well be wondering this long weekend, Why? What's it got to do with me? Come on Russ, bring us something about tips on how to improve our financial situation or give us 10 tips on parenting better. Well, as we heard in the kids talk, when we go to God's Word, when we pray, everything in God's Word has got something to do with me. You may have never heard of Covenant Theology, let alone use it today. You may have heard it talked about in Reformed churches, and just cards on the table, we are a Presbyterian church, we are a Reformed church. Reformed in theology, which means we love Covenant Theology. In fact, Covenant Theology, understanding Covenant is how we understand the Bible. How do we know that? The Bible is a covenantal book. Here's something interesting you may or may not know. The Bible is divided in your hands, in that paperback version you've got, it's divided into two parts. You know what those parts are? What the contents page says? They're called the New Testament, that's the one we read at the back, and the Old Testament is the one we're reading right now. The Old Testament, the New Testament. The word testamentum is a Latin word for, you'll never guess, covenant. The Old Covenant, the New Covenant. Your Bible in itself is teaching you. It's showing you God is a covenantal God. His Word is progressively revealing His salvation plan in covenants. The Old Covenant and New Covenant, even in the way the Bible is written for you. What is a covenant then? Well, I did a bit of reading this week. I went back to some books from college. A couple of colleges I went to had some great books on this. And I kept saying to Amy all week, it was a bit of a big week for various reasons. I said to Amy, how am I going to get a library into 40 minutes? And she said, you don't have to, just preach Genesis 17. Good tip, which I'll do. But often we don't start with that understanding behind us, do we? What is a covenant? And there's books you could read. Well, O. Palmer Robinson has this quote, which I really like. It's really helpful. A covenant is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. When God enters into a covenant relationship with people, he sovereignly institutes a life and death bond. A covenant is a bond in blood, a bond for life and death, sovereignly administered. So what's it got to do with me? Well, I hope you can see. Everything. If you think God might have something to do with your life, then the way he has bonded to you means everything. Whatever happens for you in life and in death, Genesis 17 is a great place to start in looking into covenant and God's covenant with us. And it starts by seeing, it's the first point in your outline, just verses 1 to 8, it starts by seeing this, that for Abram, Abraham, in that day the covenant starts by him being the father of not just a nation, which we've already seen God promise him, but now, did you notice, there's a difference. He's going to be the father of a multitude of nations. See, between last week's episode, chapter 16, that's where we were last week, and this week, it's actually 13 years. So we just had seven days, chapter 16, but that's 13 years has happened. And in 13 years, here we meet Abram, whose name means, of course, exalted father. He's 99 years old. His name means exalted father. I want that to settle. But he has one son. Can you imagine his mates talking about that? Visitors coming through, men coming through, women coming through, talking around the fire. Ah, Abraham, nice to meet you. Great name tag. Ah, your name, I've heard, means exalted father. Abram. And Abram says, yes. Ah, then how many children must you have, exalted father? One. Ah, well, as that person tries to retrieve some dignity in the conversation, your wife must be very beautiful and very happy that in her 89 years you have such a wonderful son. What a blessing. And Abram says, he's not her son. He's Hagar's son, the one who's serving us. Ishmael is born from Hagar. See, today we meet Abram in a situation for him. He has been a man of waiting. Waiting. 13 years since Ishmael has been born, Abram has great promise from God given to him. He's got God's Word given to him. It rolls around in his mind, he remembers it when he prays. And yet, he has Ishmael as his son. But the Lord speaks to him, verse 1. God calls Abram to walk before him blamelessly. Now this word blameless is used throughout the scriptures. It doesn't necessarily mean not a sinner or perfect because Job is called a blameless person and we know that he sins. We're in the book of Job for about 11 weeks last year or the year before. It just means that when you walk blamelessly before God, God is saying to Abram, be blameless by faith in God. Abraham is justified by faith. We've already seen this. He's already justified by faith. So Abram, Abraham, walked blamelessly before me, by faith in God. For how you worship will shape how you walk. We often think that if we can just do behavior management, people will change. That's not how it works. Your belief shapes your behavior. In fact, you can tell what someone believes by how they behave. So if someone believes that they're the one that rules their life, they're in charge, that will shape how they react and respond to other people. It will shape how they react and respond to God. Belief shapes behavior. What you worship shapes what you say. If you think it's okay to speak about people in a certain way and they're not in the room, shows who you worship, yourself, because you're the one with the word, the gos, the good word on someone, or the bad word. But you haven't realised that God is in the room, he's standing right next to you. Your belief shapes your behaviour, it shapes your words, it shapes how you walk, it shapes how you live. And God is saying to Aaron, you believe in me, right? Now walk blamelessly. Your belief will shape your behaviour. And then as he does this, he gives him, he makes this covenant The covenant actually, we've seen details already outlined, Genesis 15 onwards, but here it's a further expansion of this covenant. Now Abram falls on his face, and what follows as he listens, as he's fallen on his face, as he listens to God, God gives a speech, and it's in three sections, and that's why we saw there, like those three sections in verse 3. verse 9 and verse 15, all with God said to him. And those three sections of this speech, the first one is in verses 1 to 8, the big thing we see in verses 1 to 8 is this, Abram gets a new name. Abram goes from exalted father, and your paperback Bibles or your paper Bibles might have a footnote at the bottom. Abram means exalted father, of course. What does Abraham mean? It means father of a multitude. So Abraham goes from being daddy to big daddy. See where is the promises for Abraham before was that God would make him a great nation, that he would be a great nation. Now God is promising exceedingly more. He'll be the father of a multitude of nations. In verse 6 we see from Abraham will come nations and kings. And then verse 7, and I will establish my covenant between me and you. between your offspring and after you throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. God is saying here in this covenant he initiates, I'm going to be your God and those multitude of nations, whoever follows you in the same way, let the reader understand, justified by faith, I'll be their God too. And this is confirmed with a sign of the covenant, verses 9 to 14, secondly on the outline. The sign of the covenant. Now friends, some of these things are a bit foreign to us, it's 4,000 years ago, but some of these things you've also heard of and we need to see the spiritual, the theological importance of these things. Look at the sign of the covenant, verse 9. 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. Now just as we've seen in this series, up until now the Bible has used the word covenant a lot. We know from Hosea even, there was a covenant with Adam. Hosea says there was a covenant with Adam. There was a covenant with also, who do you know, remember? Noah. Do you remember the covenants we've seen so far? They all had signs. What was the covenant with Noah? What was the sign of the covenant with Noah? It was a rainbow, a bow, wasn't it? We've seen signs go with covenants. So, as we've said before, we don't use the word covenant a lot today, unless we're saying, look, I'm going to build a house. I'd like my house to have a pink roof. Well, you can't, because the covenant for this suburb says no pink roofs. Well, I disagree. Well, you can't, because the covenant says the agreement is no pink roofs. You may have heard of that, but even that doesn't really show us really the depths of covenant or the sign. The best way you can see in our society, covenants used is marriage. What is the sign of the covenant marriage in our society? Like, if you were looking for a sign that someone is married, what would you see if you were looking for a sign that someone was married? For those listening online, they're laughing because I'm doing the whole, you know, Beyonce, put a ring on it, hand signal thing. It's a wedding ring, isn't it? Which means, if you watch the movies and you see someone who seems a bit shady and they end up in a hotel and they start taking their wedding ring off at the restaurant desk, you think there's something wrong here with this person because they're not wanting to show their marriage. But the ring is the sign, isn't it? Every covenant we see in the Bible comes with a sign. What is the covenant sign we see before us? Of course, there are signs of the covenants. There's Sabbath day, there's a rainbow cutting of animals, circumcision, baptism, or the new covenant in Jesus' blood. But what is the sign of the covenant here? It is circumcision. The sign of the covenant signifies and acts as a seal of what God has given to us in that covenant. Be that a spouse, a worldwide flood, or salvation in Jesus' blood. So what about this sign of the covenant? Genesis 17 verse 11. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins. It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Circumcision for Abraham. His household and his offspring was a sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham. His household and his offspring. The heart of the covenant, the core of the covenant in verse 7 is that God will be to you and to your offspring after you. Of course we know when God initiated the covenant earlier that God will be his Lord through justification or righteousness by faith in God and his promised word. Now one of our cross-reference readings today, we've heard this language, it helps us. We see in Romans 4.11, Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. Notice this, the sign of circumcision was to signify the relationship that Abraham had, that his household had by grace through faith. See, the sign, circumcision, we need to see this clearly, was never how Abraham got saved by God. Just like baptism is a sign that doesn't save you, circumcision didn't save Abraham and his household. Friends, we can feel like the commands of Christ are hard, can't we? We can feel that it's hard to follow Jesus in our society, but consider this, Abraham is 99 years old, Thirteen-year-old Ishmael, the whole household of males, including eight-day-old infants, and what do they do on one day? They all get circumcised. Without anesthetic, without pain relief, and without pushback on God, Abraham's faithful obedience was costly and immediate. For look at the cost of disobedience. Verse 14. Any uncircumcised male who was not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.' Now we know from historical studies that this wasn't the moment that circumcision was invented. Other nations had circumcised before but usually, and we see it still in places in the world today, usually young boys, teenagers, becoming men. And it's used as a kind of a rite of passage. Abraham didn't need an explanation of what circumcision was. He didn't say, hey God, what is that? But God's word went with a sacramental sign explaining it. Just like in our society, no one needs explanation of what a wedding ring is. No one needs an explanation if someone's standing there with their hand like this and saying, look, I've got a ring on it. No one goes, what's that about? Because we know what the sign means. They know what circumcision means. It's not a sign of their salvation, it's a sign of God's grace. And with all these signs, they point to something future, the future of the covenant. Point three in your outline, verses 15 to 21. The covenant has a future that is for Abraham's future and through Abraham for our future. It starts in the third part of God's speech, where Sarah has her name changed by God. She's the only woman in the whole Bible ever to have her name changed. Verse 15, And God said to Abraham, As for Sarah 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 peoples shall come from her. Of course, both Sarai and Sarah mean princess, but the name change is connected to what has happened for Abram, because the future of this covenant will come through their offspring. Now, at this, notice what Abram does again. Look at this. Abram falls on his face again. What a response to God's Word. Now, we don't do that, but we at least recognize God has spoken when we read the Bible. But he falls on his face again, but this one is something different. He laughs. We'll see this over the next few chapters, but there's a fair bit of laughing going on now in Genesis. Now, we don't know what type of laughter this is. And if you've been around laughter yourself, or you've had a laugh yourself, which I imagine some of you have, you know there are different genres of that human music, aren't there? There's the laughter of rejoicing. It's fun, it's bold, it's rejuvenating. We rejoice with you, that sort of laughter, isn't there? There's the laughter of a person who plots evil. There's the laughter of effort people put in. That's funny. There's the laughter of not laughing with you, but at you. That should never be named among us as a church, but people do that. We don't know what type of laughter Abram has exactly, but we could see from the text it springs from the age of Abraham and Sarah. Then Abram fell on his face, verse 17, Abram fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who's a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who was 90 years old, bear a child? It's the laughter of disbelief for joy. Oh really? Really? Is this possibly true? So Genesis 17, 18, Abraham said to God, I've got another idea God, verse 18, that Ishmael would live before you. Speaking of offspring Lord, Abraham says, I've already managed to get one. Here's one I made earlier. And we see the Lord's answer about Ishmael. He will be blessed. He will be a nation. But he will not be the one that bears the nation or the multitude of nations. Verse 19, God said, No, Sarah, your wife will bear you a son. You should call his name Isaac. He's even named here. You know what Isaac's name means? It should be probably in a footnote in your Bible. It means he laughs. He laughs in the face of impossibility. He laughs. And so the covenant is cut. In that very day the whole household of males are cut in the sign of circumcision, the sign of the covenant that shows God's commitment to be an everlasting God with all those who are of faith in Him. With all those who have faith in Him. So friends, what has covenant theology got to do with us, with you? As we come to that conclusion, there's a statement there, there's a sentence in your outline. Here's what it's got to do with you. It's God-level type importance. It's about you. It's about this church. It's an everlasting covenant that He will be our God and we will be His people. That sentence, that line is fundamentally used in verse 7. It's at the heart, the core of the covenant. The core of the covenant, this bond in blood is at its core this, to be God to you and to your offspring forever. See this starts where the episode starts, what this looks like. Abram was commanded by God Abram, Abraham, commanded by God to walk before God and be blameless. And that means he believes in the Lord and obeys the Lord and lives for the Lord. But we've seen this, haven't we? Abram was told to obey the Lord. We've seen this at times. How did he go about doing that? Not very well. There are times when Abram, he felt like he just didn't want to. We've seen back down in Egypt when he took things into his own hands. Or that whole, let's get a baby another way plan. But to walk before God, to be bound by covenant, it was something that Abram, he wasn't a perfect man who just perfectly fitted into that plan. He was someone that God had to continue giving grace to us. And the us of the covenant matters. For God is making his bond in blood with a household of people, not just a person. The covenant is made with Abraham and his offspring. Six times in this passage we read, with your offspring. In verses 10 to 12, the language is plural. The covenant, the promises and relationship with him is for the whole household. And because God is always sovereign and a gracious God, it makes total sense that even helpless little babies who can't do anything for themselves get to be included in God's covenant care of grace. that he would be gracious towards little babies, that he would even choose from those little babies people for himself, for his own possession, for his salvation. Now of course in households, including Abraham's household, some will grow up and be covenant breakers. Some will grow up and they won't walk blamelessly by faith in God. That happened in Abraham's household, it happens in every household by and large. I come from a family where, in every generation, they were big families. Except for mine. So I have one sister. But all the generations before, we're talking six plus. Just normal. But in all those generations, in each of those families, there were some that were born-again faithful believers and some that we still pray for, like my uncles, who were not born-again faithful believers. Now we don't know if God will save them, but we ask. That's what we do. But they're all taught the gospel, all in that household, included in that covenant family. Some will grow up and become covenant breakers. And friends, notice this. When you look at Ishmael, even Ishmael is given the sign. And later in life, he is not an elect person who has faith in God. We know that this is in households today, because the way the New Testament replaces circumcision with baptism, we're a Presbyterian church which baptizes adult converts and their children. We know no one agrees with that, but we're not ashamed of that. That's who we are. And we don't do it by tradition. In fact, if we did it by tradition, we wouldn't do it, because traditionally, I didn't grow up that way. I'm into that. I'm new in this. We do it because of theology. And we don't do it because it's our response. Because baptism is a sign of God's grace, of Him being our God, if we live to grow up and believe in Him and walk in Him by faith. Because how we're justified, it's not by our baptism. How we're saved, it's not by baptism. How we're saved, friends, it's by faith in God. This is the way the everlasting covenant is made throughout the Bible. We see that circumcision always points to something down the road, something that's needed, something that's greater. We saw this in our second cross-reference reading from Deuteronomy 10. Deuteronomy 10, yet the Lord set in his heart his love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples as you are this day. And Deuteronomy 10.16, listen to this, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart. and be no longer stubborn. There are many Old Testament scriptures that speak to the circumcision needed of the heart. It's a spiritual circumcision. What people need, no matter if they're 8 days old or 80 years old, is to be born again. It's a spiritual rebirth, a regeneration of the heart. And from the Old Testament through the Bible, we see this is what circumcision always pointed to. For that rebirth is how you become God's person. We see this in Abraham. We see this in those who have faith who will follow him. Abraham was a sinner just like us, justified just like us by faith. We see in Genesis 17 verse 14, then the cost of disobedience of not having faith. See, Genesis 17, verse 14 points forward to, if you don't have faith in God, if you don't trust Him and His promises, this is what happens to those who don't have faith in Him. Verse 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. Notice this, as you track this throughout the Bible, And we see in the New Testament, we don't need circumcision anymore. Circumcision points to something else greater than it. It points to, are you going to put your faith in the God who makes covenant with you and your household? What does this mean for us through the gospel, through the good news of Jesus? Do you see what this part of the promise points to? that one day Abraham's greatest son would be born into the world, that he would fulfill covenant obligations. One day there would be a man who does lead a blameless life. One day there would be a man, as we've sung, who would actually be cut off for Abraham's sin, who would be cut off for my sin, for your sin. Jesus Christ is the one who is cut off on the cross. What is a church? A church is a covenant people of God. Which means we're a people who are made up of born-again believers and their children and outsiders who wish to come in and look into these things and be born again too. We're a big household friends. And the New Testament shows us there's a continuity and discontinuity about this covenant of promise, Galatians 5, 6. For in Christ Jesus, there's neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Yet Paul also writes in the same letter of Galatians, What I mean is this, of the law, Galatians 3.17, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. What is he saying? Even the law that comes 430 years after, the law of Moses, the covenant with Moses, comes after the covenant with Abraham. That law does not annul, it does not stop the covenant with Abraham happening. Because that covenant with Abraham is an everlasting covenant that points to this is how people get into God's household. And that means the law of Moses didn't even end the everlasting nature because the New Testament says it's continuous still. The promise, the covenant promise given to Abraham is for us. The New Testament, the new covenant does not abolish the covenant of promise that fulfills that. Do you remember the sermon that Peter preached at Pentecost? We were in Acts a couple of years ago. I can never remember the years, I should look on the website. But we were in Acts, in Acts 2.38, Peter said to them, in his sermon, to thousands of people, he says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. Peter is using this covenant theology language of Genesis 17 in his New Testament sermon. The blessings of the covenant by grace are expanded. Children, households, where children are commanded in Ephesians 6.1, which makes no sense unless you understand covenant theology. Ephesians 6.1, children, obey your parents. Why? Because they're your parents? No. Because they said so? No. Because Sesame Street tells you to? No. Play school? No. Even Bluey, even Bluey. Why are children to obey their parents in Ephesians 6.1? Do you know it? Because they're in the Lord. In the Lord. For this is right. We see that this covenant of promise has application for our households and for our church. Three things, friends, for our households and for our church. Firstly, this. And this is really important. It means we can only receive the blessings of the covenant by faith in God who makes the covenant. Just getting baptized, getting some water put on you, or for Abraham's house or getting circumcised didn't automatically lift and elevate them to relationship with God. It was a sign of how God relates to them. But how do they appropriate, how do they receive the blessings of that sign? They trust Him. They believe in Him. We're justified by faith in God and the sign points to our need to do that, friends. Which secondly means, here's the second thing, it means are we teaching that in our households? Matthew picks up Jesus' words of the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 19. How would that shape our households? It would mean that we put a priority on teaching our children Jesus. We put a priority on teaching them the gospel. I'm a parent. I get it's hard, stressful, wearying. Oh, we love you kids, just so you know, by the way. I get it's so easy, isn't it? Here's a screen. Give mum and dad some time. Here's a book, if you're so inclined. Go outside. No, no. Children are not to be cast out. They're to be brought in and taught Christ in every part of your life. How does Daddy respond to frustrations? Because the way they watch Daddy respond to frustrations is the way they'll be discipled to respond to frustrations. You can tell how children are discipled. It's not just what they can learn from a catechism. It's not just what they can quote from the Bible. It's how they behave, because belief shapes behavior. What they believe will shape their behavior. Do they believe God is in the room when they're alone, privately, and no one else sees? Do they believe God is in the room when they're with a mate doing something they shouldn't? Do they believe God is the one who not only sees them, but saves them? Do they believe these things? How are they going to believe these things? Because they're taught these things. This places a priority, friends, on making little disciples. It's why we resource and prioritize our kids' church ministry. Because as Nick said in the kids' talk, and as he prayed, they are the next generation of those who are going to be of God's covenant community. You know what we want to build here? Not a ministry where my personal preferences are met, but a ministry for the third generation, the fourth generation, until Christ returns, that there would be believers still in this society, whatever the society looks like, that they would be standing firm in Christ. And so we teach them over the dinner table, we pray with them when they're crying and they're hurt, we pray with them and we show them grace and we show them that we need grace too. We show them that I need to trust in Jesus too. It also prioritizes what our church is about. Now this ought to be a Captain Obvious kind of thing, right? It should be obvious what church is about by now. But if you are new to a church, or you're listening online or watching online, this is what church is about. See, church is not about a few things. Church is not a quality time club. Although that's important, but it's incidental. If you want to find a quality time club, you can look on Facebook. There's men's groups around tables throughout Bendigo, everywhere. Women's groups. You can find that. You can find that anywhere. Where they'll meet together to have quality time, but will not once talk about Christ. In fact, I dare say some of those places, it would not be allowed to talk about Christ. Even gently, I know we don't talk about Jesus here. Don't talk about religion here, thank you very much. We're also not a social group. We don't gather around worldly like-minded politics or personal preferences. We're also not an entertainment center, somewhere to put the kids and teens while the adults do some adulting. Now, the covenant of promise shows us that a church is a household of God, to learn and love and be all about God. A church is a worshipping household. And the covenant of promise thirdly means this, third and last, it means that for a multitude of nations that exist today, they must be in our view. included in our church, filling our prayers and focused on in our compassionate mission. So they also can become people of faith in Jesus our Lord. This covenant of promise is for households to repent and be baptized and for nations to repent and be baptized and blessed in Jesus too by faith in him. Ephesians 4 verse 5, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. For the baptism into Christ points to the spiritual realities that people need to, by faith, walk blamelessly before God. In Jeremiah 31 verse 33, the prophet says, God speaks, for this is the covenant that I'll make with the whole house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I'll put my law within them and I'll write on their hearts. And what does he say? Notice the repeated language, I will be their God and they will be my people. That phrase is used on repeat throughout the Bible. From the Old Testament, from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, the New Testament, this promise is said again and again and again. Till one day, a very real day, a day that is coming, that I praise even tomorrow, maybe this afternoon, wouldn't that be great? A real day when the future of this covenant carries us into a moment where we will see with our eyes and hear with our ears and laugh in our regenerate hearts the laughter of those who are loved by God who walk with God will hear these words 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 do you look forward to that we need that come Lord Jesus come let's pray Our Father in heaven, you have rescued us. Christ cut off for us. And so we pray for one another in this room or those who may be online, we pray that we would believe that. For we know only this covenant comes real for us by faith in Jesus. And so by your Spirit applying the promises fulfilled by Christ for us, please, we plead, apply this in our hearts. Change our hearts. And in our quiet moments, at this moment, we think of our relatives, our own households, our friends, who don't yet trust in Jesus, and we pray for them. And Father in heaven, give us grace now to worship you. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.