SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm delighted to be leading us through Genesis chapter 17 today, if you want to get your Bible or swipe there on your devices.
SPEAKER_00: But let me ask you this question as you're doing that.
SPEAKER_00: If God promised to do something that seemed impossible to you, would you trust him?
SPEAKER_00: Can God do what appears to be impossible when it comes to human reason?
SPEAKER_00: When we closed out our study of Genesis chapter 16, Abram and Sarai were 86 and 76 years old, respectively, yet God had still promised them a son plus innumerable descendants.
SPEAKER_00: How did the couple manage trusting God together?
SPEAKER_00: How many times did their faith waver or falter?
SPEAKER_00: How many times, for instance, did they become impatient?
SPEAKER_00: And did that impatience ever lead to some kind of frustration with God's delays or to a marital argument or to a sleepless night?
SPEAKER_00: These are really good questions when you start to think about how long we have between chapters, even here, because Genesis 17, verse 1, opens with a statement that Abram is now 99 years old, which means Sarah was 89.
SPEAKER_00: And if the couple had had difficulty conceiving before, what hope would there have been now?
SPEAKER_00: Then verse 1 goes on to tell us also, and you'll you'll read this with me in a second, that Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, dot, dot, dot, I'll leave that hanging because we're going to read in a second.
SPEAKER_00: But here's where we get God reaffirming his promise after 13 years.
SPEAKER_00: You can do the math yourself, but from 86 years of age at the close of chapter 16 to 99 years of age at the opening of chapter 17, 13 years go by.
SPEAKER_00: What would God say?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing had happened.
SPEAKER_00: They hadn't had a child, they hadn't had a son, the first of any descendants.
SPEAKER_00: How did Abram respond to God as God appears to him and speaks to him again?
SPEAKER_00: And what does it mean for the rest of us who years and years and years later trust in or put our faith in this God of the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Join us now.
SPEAKER_00: I think I think you'll really enjoy this study that we're going to call the unhurried, mystifying, but faithful covenant God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so chapter 17, and it goes just like this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: I love when God reveals himself so clearly to someone in the pages of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And we're always looking for that, aren't we, when we go to Scripture and we read it.
SPEAKER_00: How does God reveal Himself here?
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is one of those times where it becomes really clear.
SPEAKER_00: El Shaddai is the title that God has here and is revealing to Abram.
SPEAKER_00: And it is used, oh, good grief.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like four dozen times throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, I'm God Almighty, I'm El Shaddai, walk before me and be blameless.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations might say, walk before me and you will be blameless.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, which is right, which is wrong?
SPEAKER_00: They're both right, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Um you walk before the Lord, you're uh the the idea there is that you're walking with his approval, you are uh seeking his wisdom, his ways, you're walking in his will and in the paths of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: So walk before me and be blameless.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse two, I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: So you heard me emphasize those two little words, I will.
SPEAKER_00: They appear, I think it's 16 times in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: This chapter is really all about God, and it's all about God saying, I will, I will, I will, I will.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that because I'm always, I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm concerned and interested in learning about God.
SPEAKER_00: And how is it that he's the Almighty?
SPEAKER_00: And how is it that his promises apply to me over the years?
SPEAKER_00: And do I sometimes maybe get it wrong when I'm trying to discern what his promises really are from scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Do I, do I just proof text, just lift something out myself and and claim it?
SPEAKER_00: Can I, or is there something about these promises that are unique to Abram and unique to Sarah here in this space-time history, this little slice of that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's continue our study.
SPEAKER_00: I think some of this will become clear.
SPEAKER_00: But he God, when he speaks, he says, I'm God Almighty, walk before me, be blameless.
SPEAKER_00: I will establish my covenant between me and you, I will multiply you exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: He's 99 years old, and God's saying this again to him.
SPEAKER_00: And you wonder how's Abram gonna respond?
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 3 tells us, right?
SPEAKER_00: And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
SPEAKER_00: This is really amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not surprised that Abram fell on his face.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, even just the appearance of God, even just the voice of God speaking to him again.
SPEAKER_00: After 13 years, we have no record of any other voice from God or message from God or angel appearing to him.
SPEAKER_00: We just have this 13 years of everyday life and silence since the last time God stated his promise to Abram and Sarai.
SPEAKER_00: Thirteen years.
SPEAKER_00: It's a long time, more than a decade.
SPEAKER_00: And so many of us are so impatient all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm impatient.
SPEAKER_00: I send a text, I'm impatient that the text has to go all the way up to the satellite and all the way back down, and because it's got a little photo in it or something like that, it takes more than two seconds, you know.
SPEAKER_00: We are so trained up in being impatient.
SPEAKER_00: And here, Abram, 13 years, God shows up, God speaks to him, and Abram's response is to fall on his face.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not just I'm overwhelmed, not I'm just exasperated, haven't heard from you.
SPEAKER_00: What have you done for me lately?
SPEAKER_00: It's not that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Back in their day and time, and over and over and over again, we see with Abram, um, his falling on his face, and we'll see it a couple times in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: His falling on his face before the Lord is actually his sign of a resolute submission to God, a resolve to trust and believe God, to honor God, to respect God in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he is going to be overwhelmed and in many ways astonished at what God says and how he continues to make these promises just like we would be.
SPEAKER_00: But let's see what goes, what happens.
SPEAKER_00: It says Abram fell on his face, and God was talking with him.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, my covenant is with you, and you'll be the father of a multitude of nations, not just one nation, not just one group of people, but looking all the way forward, I love this, looking all the way forward to the end of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: This is Genesis, remember, all the way forward to Revelation, we're standing before the throne of God will be who?
SPEAKER_00: People from every tongue and tribe and nation and people group.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, if you pull the thread here in Genesis, your Bible crinkles all the way through to Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It's all connected.
SPEAKER_00: It's got this one big meta-narrative.
SPEAKER_00: God in pursuit of a people he can call his own, and God making it possible for us to be reconciled to him.
SPEAKER_00: Sinners though we are, holy and almighty as he is, he has done everything necessary.
SPEAKER_00: And this is part of the storyline, and I love this thing.
SPEAKER_00: So now God's going to change his name from Abram to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Abram means exalted father, but Abraham means father of many nations.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, sort of the the uh you know broadening of the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Even as if God's just doubling down and saying, No, I know you're 99.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's been 13 years since the last time I talked to you.
SPEAKER_00: But no, this is really happening.
SPEAKER_00: And it's happening bigger than you could have imagined.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.
SPEAKER_00: And I will, you could circle all of these I wills, by the way, in your Bible, or if you have that ability on your device to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Like I say, 16 of these, uh, at least 14, depending on which English translation you have, at least 14 times, but uh in many translations be 16 of them.
SPEAKER_00: So I will make you the father of multitude of nations, verse six, and I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.
SPEAKER_00: And verse seven, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you, and I will, verse eight, give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we have, uh, as we have seen before, here we have God promising not only a progeny, you know, a line of descendants, but also the land that will be the promised land where the children of Israel will come and settle further down the line in history.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, God said further to Abraham, Now as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
SPEAKER_00: This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you.
SPEAKER_00: Every male among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you.
SPEAKER_00: And again, you know, um this is one of those sort of awkward things to talk about sometimes, but this is one of those uh visible signs or seals of God's covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Um, in our own day and time, um, we through the New Testament lens, we look at all of this, we see that the practice of baptism is now appropriately the sign of the covenant between each and every believer and Jesus Christ, in that we are united with Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we baptize, folks, um, we will often do it do an explanation of what that's like because we practice immersion, immersion here.
SPEAKER_00: We'll immerse them in the water.
SPEAKER_00: They'll go down into the water, and it's as if they were being united with Christ as a visible display of their union with Christ in his death and his burial, and then they come back up out of the water to uh symbolize uh their being resurrected into newness of life and Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a beautiful sign and symbol of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And here, of course, with circumcision, um delicate thing to talk about, of course, but every single day Abram will be reminded multiple times a day, he'll be reminded that he belongs to the God who makes promises and keeps promises, the covenant-making God and the covenant-keeping God.
SPEAKER_00: He belongs in every part of who he is, even the most intimate part of who he is, belongs to this kind of God that makes covenants and keeps covenants.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this.
SPEAKER_00: And that will be a sign and a and a symbol that we'll he'll pass on not only through his household, but through the generations to come.
SPEAKER_00: And let me finish reading this and he'll describe all of that for us.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you shall be uh verse 11, uh this is our verse 10, this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants.
SPEAKER_00: After you, every male among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you.
SPEAKER_00: And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house, or who is bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your descendants, a servant who is born in your house, or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised, for thus shall my covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And I know, you know, these guys are all going to be adults, and here Abram's 99.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh babies nowadays are male children are typically circumcised uh, you know, while they're still in the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: But the idea here is that it's verse 12, eight days old or older.
SPEAKER_00: And it's fascinating to me that some of my medical friends will tell me when a baby is first born, when a baby boy is first born, it actually takes about a week before their blood is ready to uh uh to actually um uh uh form a clot.
SPEAKER_00: And so they, if they were to be circumcised before that eighth day, they would have bled out, they would have died.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's amazing how God, who has designed the human body, who's designed a world where science is even possible, it's amazing how that God, even in his instructions here, gives that kind of detailed instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, even the servants that are among you, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh verse 14 but an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people.
SPEAKER_00: He has broken my covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And so God takes this very seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's it's it's um it's very much an everyday, uh multiple times a day reminder to the heads of households back in their day and time that they belong to God, and every every part of them belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: Really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said to Abram, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's not only changing Abram's name to Abraham, but Sarai is the name that his wife has been going by.
SPEAKER_00: Now she's going to be called Sarah.
SPEAKER_00: As far as we can tell, both of those words, those ancient uh Hebrew words, uh go back to sort of the the basic meaning is princess, and they're very, very similar.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost as if God is saying, Oh, she's 89?
SPEAKER_00: No problem, she's still a princess.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this about I love I love that about this.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh because indeed she's precious to him, and she's of course been wondering, and she's had the social stigma of being barren all of her life, all the way up now till um 89 years of age.
SPEAKER_00: And when she has Isaac, when Isaac does come along, it's only about a year from now, uh, from this particular time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh she'll be 90, and Abram, Abraham will be 100 years of age when God actually chooses to fulfill this promise.
SPEAKER_00: And the timing is just right.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, she's still being called princess, just a different version of the same word.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, God says, Another I will, and I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her.
SPEAKER_00: Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.
SPEAKER_00: Kings of peoples shall come from her.
SPEAKER_00: So a little more detail given as uh God continues to reaffirm his promises to this precious couple, this precious aged couple.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Then Abraham responds in verse 17, and he fell on his face and laughed.
SPEAKER_00: So this time he falls on his face, uh, just as he did earlier in the chapter, and now he's falling on his face again, and this time he's laughing.
SPEAKER_00: And I really believe he's laughing for joy.
SPEAKER_00: I really believe that he is uh it's kind of this mixture of wonder and amazement and joy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, you know, it's it's sort of like, can that really happen?
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe, you know, I can't believe you would say that, God, Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens: he fell on his face and he laughed, and he said in his heart, the the uh narrator here, which we think is Moses, is giving us some insight into this because this story had to be handed down.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta know that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, this must have been an amazing story to tell around the campfire for generations to come, right?
SPEAKER_00: So here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Um He fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, Will a child be born to a man 100 years old?
SPEAKER_00: And will Sarah, who's 90 years old, bear a child?
SPEAKER_00: And Abram evidently forgetting that his own father had him when his father was 130 years of age.
SPEAKER_00: But we always tend to operate within the context of what we know, right?
SPEAKER_00: And what we're experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: And so where he's at right now, he's literally laying on his face, laughing out loud, and in his heart he's going, I just can't believe this is true, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we've all had amazement and wonder to think that something we'd hoped for, dreamed for all our lives, um, wondered if God had forgotten us, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here it comes, this promise.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and he's wondering about it and then thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00: Abram said to God then, oh, that Ishmael might live before thee.
SPEAKER_00: So he even offers up sort of an alternative to God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can't even imagine that to be true.
SPEAKER_00: Is it maybe maybe you meant Ishmael, you know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: We do that all the time in our prayers, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We we're always giving God alternatives, and I love this about the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He never has to have a plan, but he never has to have an alternative strategy because his plans and his purposes are always accomplished, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: And we need to remember that, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Even after 13 years, even when it seems impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, nothing is impossible with this sovereign God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so he offers a Ishmael thinking, oh, surely that's how you're gonna accomplish your your uh promises, God, or bring your promises about.
SPEAKER_00: But God said, No, but Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son, and you will call his name Isaac, which means he laughs.
SPEAKER_00: And so every time you call his name, you're gonna remind yourself, Abraham, that you laughed about this and that it created either such joy or wonderment or some collision of the two, whatever, but you're gonna be reminded of that.
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
SPEAKER_00: And as for Ishmael, and you know, lest you were kind of, if if you're out there wondering, well, what was going on with Ishmael and Hagar?
SPEAKER_00: As for Ishmael, I've heard you.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I will, God says, I will bless him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: He shall become the father of a tw of twelve princes, princes, and I will make him a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: And indeed, if you want to read ahead, you can see in Genesis chapter 25 that the Lord does that, that the Lord actually fulfills his promise even to Ishmael here as well.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this God of the Bible is faithful.
SPEAKER_00: I love this about him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.
SPEAKER_00: And so now God is becoming so specific, which he has not done up until now.
SPEAKER_00: But in chapter 12 and chapter 15, when the covenant's stated, um, here he comes, and he's gonna say, now it's gonna happen actually next year.
SPEAKER_00: And when he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham, verse 22 says.
SPEAKER_00: And now here's Abram's response, Abraham's response.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Then Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all the servants who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's, Abraham's household, and he circumcised the flesh on their foreskin in the very same day as God had said to him.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, if you know, if you're one of that crowd, and you know, it's it, boy, you just you want a what?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you gotta find yourself asked, how about a temporary tattoo or something?
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be just as good?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're thinking of alternatives, just like Abraham was thinking of an alternative here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but no, this is what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very serious and solemn, and God wants it to be taken seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And so, verse 23, he took Ishmael, who's now like 13 years of age, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he took the servants, and all of them were circumcised, as God had said to him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24, now Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
SPEAKER_00: And Ishmael his son was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
SPEAKER_00: In the very same day, Abraham was circumcised and Ishmael his son.
SPEAKER_00: And to have that sacred ceremony together with Ishmael.
SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, it goes without saying they both would have remembered it for a long time, but for more than one reason, and there was a sacred nature to it, and this father and this son together on that day.
SPEAKER_00: And all the men of his household who were born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him.
SPEAKER_00: And this is fascinating to me that God is establishing his covenant in such a beautiful and a permanent way.
SPEAKER_00: There's pain in it, that's correct.
SPEAKER_00: But it's personal.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's a diverse group of people, people a variety of ages, from 13 to 99, and a lot of guys in between that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just people who are Abraham's descendants, but it's people who are in the household, foreigners from either came from Egypt with them or somewhere along the way have joined the household as servants.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is the only way they could find employment.
SPEAKER_00: And because we know that Abraham is rich and wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: So on and on the possibilities go for the way this symbol, this seal, if you will, is going to remind everyone that the God of the Bible is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, and that he um intends to bring salvation to his people.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so what do we learn here?
SPEAKER_00: Let me throw up a couple of slides.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, the three chapters that talk about the covenants.
SPEAKER_00: God's covenant with Abram presented in chapter 12 for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: God's covenant with Abram ratified in Genesis 15.
SPEAKER_00: We studied that with the covenant, cutting of the covenant ceremony that was there.
SPEAKER_00: And then God's covenant with Abram reaffirmed in Genesis chapter 17 here as we have uh studied it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's the purpose of this covenant and what is God saying in all of that?
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, let me just use this quote from Derek Kidner, one of my favorite commentators on the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: And his economy of language is just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to get just a single volume uh commentary on Genesis, Derek Kidner's is a great one.
SPEAKER_00: He said this spiritually, the essence of the covenant is personal, like the I will of a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: So the pledge I will be their God far outweighs the particular benefits.
SPEAKER_00: This is the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The striking feature of the stipulations is their lack of detail.
SPEAKER_00: To be committed was all.
SPEAKER_00: Circumcision was God's brand.
SPEAKER_00: The moral implications could be left unwritten until Sinai, for one was pledged to a master, only secondarily to a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see that this covenant, again, like we learned from Rabbi Jonathan Sachs in our previous studies, this is personal.
SPEAKER_00: This is very much God saying, what I want to give you is myself, and what I want you to give me is yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And again, another reason for why this is such a this covenant in terms of the choice of how God symbolizes it is such a very personal thing and intimate thing.
SPEAKER_00: This God of the Bible wants a relationship with you and a relationship with me.
SPEAKER_00: And that's at the heart of that.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what the symbol looks like itself, whether it's circumcision in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, and since water baptism where you're down in the water and back up, it's still very much a personal union or dwelling with our God.
SPEAKER_00: The sovereign God of the Bible is always and everywhere active and on the move.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants us to know that.
SPEAKER_00: And he's moving in your direction.
SPEAKER_00: He's moving in my direction.
SPEAKER_00: He's watching from the windows like the prodigal son's father, waiting for you, even if you're way off in a far distant country, waiting to just see you in the distance to turn around.
SPEAKER_00: One step.
SPEAKER_00: If there's a, and we've said it so many times before, if there's a thousand steps between you and God, the minute you take that one that starts the turn, where you repent and turn toward God, He He comes running out to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's how eager He is to live in a right relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: So much more eager than we often are ourselves to be reconciled with God.
SPEAKER_00: Look at how this God of the Bible loves us so.
SPEAKER_00: He is the covenant-making, covenant-keeping God.
SPEAKER_00: He's the sovereign God of the Bible, and he is always and ever, everywhere, active and on the move.
SPEAKER_00: The other thing is that I like to highlight from this chapter is God's absolute right of choice.
SPEAKER_00: When to appear and speak to Abram, what to call himself.
SPEAKER_00: Here he's revealing himself as El Shaddai, you know, God Almighty, with whom he will speak.
SPEAKER_00: God has that right.
SPEAKER_00: What to say, whether he's offering commands or promises, uh uh reaffirming his covenant as in this chapter, or giving instruction and warnings or judgments, uh, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one who has absolute right of choice in these things, who to claim as his own, who to give anything to, and what to give them, what to command, what to demand from anyone at any time, anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: This is the divine prerogative of the sovereign God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we have here in chapter 17 a reminder that even though this couple is 99 and 89, all right, don't let the odds or circumstances before you eclipse your faith in the sovereign God who is all around you.
SPEAKER_00: One more time, read that with me, as a matter of fact, will you?
SPEAKER_00: Don't let the odds or circumstances before you eclipse your faith in the sovereign God who is all around you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that is so true.
SPEAKER_00: And he is all around you, he is all around me.
SPEAKER_00: And he is, as we see throughout the pages of scripture and all the way into the New Testament promises of Jesus, he promises never to leave us or to forsake us.
SPEAKER_00: That he is with us always, no matter what we're going through.
SPEAKER_00: I want to remind you of that.
SPEAKER_00: And and can you imagine this dear couple?
SPEAKER_00: 13 years of silence from heaven, 13 years of nothing after those promises were stated in uh chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: 13 years before God even shows up again to speak to them.
SPEAKER_00: And how um how many times, like I say, they they might have found themselves wondering if God really meant it, if God was really even there anymore, or had He abandoned them altogether.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you feel like that sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I know I have, in terms of my feelings, anyway, they come and go all the time.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I need God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we study through books of the Bible here at the village Shelby.
SPEAKER_00: See, faith grows by hearing the word of God, faith grows by believing and walking according to the word of God, and faith grows by trusting Christ, who is himself the living word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And as we trust Christ, and as we walk with him, even as we see it here in the life of Abraham, you see his faith growing.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna see it tested and tried and stretched even further in the coming chapters.
SPEAKER_00: But when that, when when we go through all of that, if it's Christ we're trusting and not ourselves, if it's Christ we're trusting and not the culture around us, if it's Christ we're trusting and not our wallets or our careers or the next opportunity or the next administration or the next political upheaval or whatever we're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: If it's Christ we're really trusting, you see, he will prove himself to be the faithful, sovereign God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer says it this way: wait on the Lord is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting.
SPEAKER_00: He's not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time.
SPEAKER_00: Or as that old song says, one day at a time.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: This is an ongoing thing.
SPEAKER_00: See, we're called to continually wait on the Lord, but we don't wait in a hopeless way.
SPEAKER_00: We don't wait in despair, we wait anticipating.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because our faith or what we're actually waiting on is God Himself, not the circumstances to change.
SPEAKER_00: Not the circumstances to go away or to or to go the way we want them to, or to go our in our timing, but we're waiting on the Lord because we trust the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way Dale Ralph Davis puts this in his teaching on this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, we would prefer to have a deity with high blood pressure and one that gave promises with microwaveable instructions on them.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: So having a covenant God is to have a God who baffles us with his strange and stubborn ways.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way he said that.
SPEAKER_00: That is so true.
SPEAKER_00: I do want to be able to program a microwave, you know, sort of response from God every time I want something or I want something to be out of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're that way too.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you understand this sense.
SPEAKER_00: But one thing we find in the timeless truths of the Bible is that if we hurry the waiting, we might miss the wisdom and the glory that only waiting can bring.
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll listen to a preacher named Vodhi Bacham, and he said this once radical Christians are not people who jump around at concerts.
SPEAKER_00: Radical Christians are not people who just wear Christian t-shirts.
SPEAKER_00: Radical Christians are those who bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so if you want to be radical, really radical, you know, love, joy, peace, and even that last one, self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Look it up in Galatians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: They're all listed there.
SPEAKER_00: And they're amazing, and they're the fruit of the Spirit at work in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Bringing out, you know, meekness or kindness and gentleness and all of these amazing things that we can't just drum up ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is we're trusting in the God of the Bible who transforms us and changes us.
SPEAKER_00: We're not meant to be just Christmas trees that we stick little ornaments on of moral achievements and things we've stopped doing this and started doing this.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's just an endless parade of moral failures waiting to happen.
SPEAKER_00: The Christmas tree idea image is that's not who we're supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be fruit trees.
SPEAKER_00: And the fruit grows because the tree is rooted and grounded in God's word, planted firmly by streams of living water, and the Holy Spirit is bringing the life, this fruit to life in our hearts, transforming us and changing us.
SPEAKER_00: See, um if you're if you're not like Abraham and Sarah trusting God, and I think they do a pretty good job after 13 years here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying they're perfect, I'm not saying they're the ultimate heroes of the story.
SPEAKER_00: I think God is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this chapter is about God.
SPEAKER_00: It's God who says, I will 15, 16 times.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we tend to focus on who gets the control in the pace or the direction uh uh or the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way we all tend to think.
SPEAKER_00: And we're so used to all of that, especially here in the West.
SPEAKER_00: For Abram and for Sarah now, 13 years had passed with just everyday normal life.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, would they now, could they now trust God?
SPEAKER_00: Because next year, of course, we know we've seen the rest of the story here.
SPEAKER_00: Isaac's gonna be born.
SPEAKER_00: And man, is that gonna be awesome?
SPEAKER_00: Because his name will just give them joy and laughter.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So for us, what's the question?
SPEAKER_00: What's the faith response God might be looking for?
SPEAKER_00: Let me post it up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: Can you find rest in the quotidian ordinariness of an everyday life, trusting the unhurried, mystifying, but faithful covenant God of the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Great question to ask ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Great question, I think, to be confronted with as you consider this story and think about all of it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, God has his own sense of timing, and if you knew, if I knew, everything that God knows, we might understand his timing and his pace and his direction and the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: We might understand all of that a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00: The question, though, really is here's a God that's willing to make a covenant with us.
SPEAKER_00: As far as I can tell, that's not the kind of thing that any other gods do.
SPEAKER_00: The other religious belief systems say follow these rules and you might appease the angry deity.
SPEAKER_00: But with the Christian faith, with the gospel, with the God of the Bible, who in all of the Old Testament points to and finds its fulfillment in Jesus Himself, what you have is a God that provides everything necessary for you and for me to be reconciled to God Almighty in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The question is will we wait on the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Will we lift up the empty hands of faith and trust in him and rest in his promises as we wait on him?