Friday, June 27th

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 1 Chronicles 13-14; Psalm 119:73-80; Romans 11

Genesis 17

English Standard Version (ESV)

Abraham and the Covenant of Circumcision

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

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

Isaac's Birth Promised

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

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

Accompanying Bob Deffinbaugh sermon: Grasping the Great Truth of God
Accompanying Ray Pritchard sermon: God of the Impossible

It's been 13 years since Abram stepped out in disobedience, following the advice of his wife to produce an heir through her maidservant. 13 long years where Abram learned the consequences of disobedience. This time of waiting also intensified the impossibility of Abram and Sarai every having a child naturally, without divine intervention.

Finally, God broke His silence with Abram, reestablishing the covenant and requiring Abram to walk blamelessly. He reiterated that Abram would become a great nation, changing his name to Abraham which means "father of a multitude". Abraham would be the father of kings, and God would be his God and the God of his descendants.

At this point, God required Abraham and his whole family to be circumcised, symbolically putting away the flesh. This sign would be a personal daily reminder of what God required in order to enjoy the blessings of the covenant, and that they were set apart to be different from those around them.

Pritchard: Of all the questions we might like to ask about this, two stand out and deserve special attention. First, why did God ask for this particular sign? Presumably he could have asked for any sign he wanted. Why pick something like circumcision? I think the answer goes something like this. Circumcision by its nature touches the very core of what it means to be a man. In his most intimate and personal moments each Jewish male would forever be reminded that he was a holy Son of the Covenant and that he belonged to God. No one else might know it but once he was circumcised, he could never forget it.

That leads to the second question. Why did God choose a sign that applied only to the men? I think the answer is that God was reminding Abraham that he was the head of his own household, and as such he had to answer to God for what happened in his own family. Circumcision meant accepting your place God’s appointed spiritual leader in your own family. It’s like a father giving his daughter away at a wedding. He stands and speaks on behalf of the whole family. The circumcised man was saying to God, “I accept the covenant you have made.” In Joshua 24:15 we have this idea expressed in a very similar fashion when Joshua exclaims, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

God also gave specific promises to Sarai. Her name was changed to Sarah which means Princess (fitting for the mother of a great nation), she would soon give birth to a son through whom she would become the mother of many nations, and great rulers would descend from her. Such an amazing demonstration of God's grace. Sarah's faith to this point has been very weak. We've seen her take matters into her own hands out of desperation (you'd have to be desperate to purposefully send another woman into your husband's arms), and then be cruel to Hagar when she got the results she had intended. But the amazing thing is, that so often God blesses us, and works through us, in spite of ourselves.

We immediately see Abraham's doubts spring up in laughter - which is a very natural/human response when we are promised the impossible. We also see his love for Ishmael in this passage, as he indicates that he's perfectly fine to have Ishmael be the one through whom God's blessing will come. There's no way God can allow that. The spiritual blessing could never come through disobedience, and had to come through God's purposes alone. But God does bless Ishmael, promising that he too would be a great nation with rulers as his descendants. But God would establish His covenant with Isaac, not Ishmael.

At the end of our passage we see Abraham's immediate obedience. He, and all the males of his household, were circumcised on that very day, just as God had instructed.

Pritchard: Here is proof of Abraham’s faith: A few minutes ago he had been laughing in disbelief. Now he is circumcised to seal his dedication to God and his Word. Doubting is no sin, so long as your doubts don’t keep you from obeying God.

God's name is still El Shaddai - He is still the God of the impossible - as we witnessed personally with the miraculous healing of our nephew Baret from death's door.

Sometimes God's call may require obedience that doesn't make sense to us (as I'm sure circumcision didn't make sense to Abraham), but faith required obedience anyway.

We all need to be circumcised today - a circumcision of the heart.

We all need to be circumcised today. But the circumcision God requires is the circumcision of the heart. That’s what Romans 2:28-29 clearly teaches. “A man is not a Jew is he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.”

Note this carefully: Circumcision—although it was a physical mark on the body—was never meant to be an end in itself. The physical mark was meant to be accompanied by a deep spiritual commitment to God. Where commitment was absent, circumcision soon degenerated into ritualism....

Although some may find this entire discussion academic, it has an incredibly relevant application to modern American church members. Many of us regard our baptism in much the same way the Jews regarded circumcision. Some churches even teach that baptism saves from sin and guarantees entrance into heaven.....Let us be clear on this point. All religious ritual is worthless unless something has already happened in the heart!
Baptism, church attendance, communion, tithing - none of that can save us. Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ to bridge the gap between us and heaven is the only thing that can save us. And no one else can believe for you. God has no spiritual grandchildren. But He stands willing to adopt all as His child, if only we believe in Jesus Christ.

Deffinbaugh makes another good point to end his sermon. It took Abraham a lifetime to understand the few verses of Genesis 12:1-3.
If it took Abraham a lifetime to grasp three verses of Scripture, how long will it take us to fathom the depth of the riches of His grace (cf. Romans 11:33-36)?

This passage helps me come to grips with the desire to learn ‘new’ truths for my own life and for my preaching. God is not so interested in us knowing new truth as He is in us grasping the few great truths of His word. How easy it is to think that we have learned some truth, only to pass on to another. In Abraham’s life, God revealed a truth, then continued to return to it, testing him, and then revealing more of that truth than he had known before. Which one of us can say that we have come to fathom the doctrine of the grace of God or of the atonement? Who would be willing to claim that he had seen all of its implications? I believe that, like Abraham, we can expect God to be at work in our lives, expanding and expounding upon the few great and central truths of Christianity.

The more I study the life of Abraham, the more I see that his was a relationship of growth. He came to learn more and more about the God Who called him. He came to a deeper and deeper understanding of the meaning of God’s Word. As he did so, he invariably drew nearer and nearer to God. There was not only a growth in Abraham’s knowledge, but in his intimacy. At first, God only spoke to Abraham (12:1). Twenty-four years later He revealed Himself to Abraham and spoke with him. Abraham, for the first time, communed with God and interacted with Him. Later, he would be called the friend of God.