Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

January 20, 2026 - Genesis 17 & Psalm 17

• Josiah Smith - Compass Bible Church South Valley

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In Genesis 17, God renames Abram and confirms a covenant that stretches from Isaac to the nations. In Psalm 17 David teaches us how the word of God guards our steps and fuels bold prayer. We trace land, seed, and blessing as gospel echoes and learn simple ways to remember God’s faithfulness.

• covenant reaffirmed through land, seed, blessing
• Abram and Sarai renamed as Abraham and Sarah
• Isaac promised despite age and doubt
• circumcision instituted as covenant sign
• God’s faithfulness applied to daily life
• Psalm 17 as a model for guarded steps
• praying Scripture with confidence and clarity
• building tangible reminders of answered prayer

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, lead pastor of Compass South Valley. Today is Tuesday, January 20th, 2026. Listen intently to God's written word. Genesis 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, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. 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 after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, 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. 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. 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 God said to Abraham, 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 peoples shall come from her. 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 nine years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before you. 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. 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. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. 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 ninety nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, and Ishmael his son was thirteen 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. Psalm seventeen. Hear a just cause, O Lord, attend to my cry, give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit. From your presence, let my vindication come. Let your eyes behold the right. You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night, you have tested me, and you will find nothing. I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress. With regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths, my feet have not slipped. I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God, incline your ear to me, hear my words, wondrously show your steadfast love. O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand. Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who do me violence, my deadly enemies who surround me. They close their hearts to pity, with their mouths they speak arrogantly. They have now surrounded our steps, they set their eyes to cast us to the ground. He is like a lion eager to tear, as a young lion lurking in ambush. Arise, O Lord, confront him, subdue him, deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword, from men by your hand, O Lord, from men of the world whose portion is in this life. You fill their womb with treasure. They are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants. As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness. When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Now Genesis seventeen is pivotal in the development of the Abrahamic covenant. And one last time we've been talking about those three main items in the covenant land, seed, and blessing. And we see those reiterated in an incredibly clear way here in Genesis 17. God is reminding Abram, and ultimately he renames him Abraham, of these things. He says, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. We have this blessing, we have this land, we have this uh possession and this seed, this inheritance. And of course, we see in uh ultimately and clarity here uh Isaac being the seed that is promised. And of course, uh Abraham and Sarah, they are older in years, so from a biological perspective, it seems like this shouldn't be possible, but God makes it clear, he reveals more of the details, even giving him the very name of their offspring. In 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 again, we have those three items the land that is promised, that was detailed specifically in chapter 12 and chapter 13, even reiterated again in chapter 15. We have the seed, the offspring, which we see here most clearly being Isaac, and we have the blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you. I know we've been saying it again and again as we've been slowly making our way through Genesis, but I want you to see what Moses, the author of Genesis, is trying to get you to see, which is that God is a faithful God, that He is faithful to His word, that He is faithful to His promises. And Genesis 17, in many ways, is you could say, gospel echoes that get reverberated all the way through history that culminate in the Messiah and the incarnation of the Son of God. It's right there in the promise of this Abrahamic covenant. In verse 8 of Genesis 17, it says, And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land. Remember, land, seed, blessing, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. That is a gospel echo. That is uh just a shadow of ultimately what we know to be the substance of Christ. That's pointing forward to the promised Messiah that is a part of the lineage that began with the offspring, Isaac. And so we see God being a faithful God. And this is what in the book of Genesis, again, we are reminded of over and over. It's a simple truth, but it's often the simplest truths that are hardest for us to believe, at least functionally, in our lives, with our finances, with our children, with our planning, with our time. We can tr lack trust in the promises of God. And so Genesis 17 again is meant to orient us to a God that keeps his word. And of course, we see here the sign of circumcision being instituted that was a physical demonstration, a physical reminder for all of the offspring of Abraham moving forward, that God had placed a promise on them, that God had made a covenant with them to be their God. I will be your God, you will be my people, God says. And that sign of circumcision was a physical, tangible reminder of that promise. And so while circumcision, at least in the sense that we see here in Genesis 17, of being a sign and a physical demonstration of God's covenant-keeping promises, while they that may not be the same today as it was back in Genesis 17, there are certainly things, perhaps in your life, that you can and should hold on to as physical demonstrations of the faithfulness of God. Whether that is just uh keeping a written journal of answered prayers, uh, certainly having uh a copy of God's word that you regularly open and read and study just to be reminded physically of the promises of God. Uh, maybe it's your your spouse, your husband, your wife, your your children. Maybe it's the things that God has provided to you from a physical perspective, but more than that, what God has provided to you in Christ. What are those things that you could look at today and say, this is a demonstration of the faithfulness of God? This is a reminder of God keeping his promises. And in Genesis 17, we see God telling Abraham and all of his offspring to have this sign of circumcision, to remember who he is, that he is their God, and that he is true to his promises. Now, as we transition to Psalm 17, I was really struck uh by a couple of the phrases here uh that David is using uh in his prayer, just pleading to the Lord. See, he says there in verse 4, with regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips, I have avoided the ways of the violent. This this made me think of other psalms where uh David asked the question, How does a young man keep his way pure? And then he gives the answer by guarding it according to your word. And here he says, With regard to the works of man, by the words of your lips, I have avoided the ways of the violent. He he has been protected, he has been kept from the ways of the violent. And you could fill in the word violent with any number of words the the wicked, the the foolish, the arrogant, the prideful. I have avoided the ways of the violent by the word of your lips. What a great reminder for us today that God's word keeps us from foolishness. And I I hope that we can say, along with David, because of the words of God that we have recorded for us and kept for us in Scripture, because of the words of God applied to our hearts by the Spirit of God, we have avoided the ways of the violent. We have avoided the ways of the wicked. David clings to the words of God to find safety, to find protection, and to ultimately keep him from stumbling down paths that he wishes not to go down. And then if we skip down to verse six, David says, I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God. Incline your ear to me, hear my words, wondrously show your steadfast love. O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand. And what just a genuine and sincere crying out to the Lord. My hope for you and my desire for you, as you read carefully through the Psalms, is that your prayer life is shaped by the way that we see David and others crying out to the Lord. You should be in your Bible, you should be marking up all of the ways that David is crying out to the Lord. Look at the way that he requests things from God. Look at the way that he speaks to God. Look at the way that he cries out to God and use that as a template in your own life to increase your prayer life. And in fact, better yet, you should always in your own private prayer life have an open Bible in front of you where you can just read the scriptures or take the phrases from the scriptures, the truths from the scriptures, and pray them back to God. What a great practice that that is. And I remember a book by uh Diedrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together. He talks about praying the Psalms and what a unique thing that that is when Christians commit to praying the Psalms, we are ultimately praying the prayers of saints who lived thousands of years ago. Think about that. That we stand in a long line, a long legacy of Christ followers, or a long legacy of those who would seek to worship God. And what are they praying? What are they crying out for? What's the desire of their heart? Well, we step into their shoes, we get to hear the cries and echoes of their hearts when we simply open up the Bible and we get to pray what they pray. And in a very real sense, much like in a life group setting, when you're praying side by side with other believers, when you pray the Psalms, you are praying side by side with those who have come before you. And what a great encouragement that that is, and how that really tethers us to the legacy of faith that we have been given, that's been passed down to us from those who have gone before. So pray with an open Bible, pray like you see David praying, hear up, call upon you, for you will answer me, oh God. You hear that confidence? You will answer me. Incline your ear to me, hear my words. Wondrously show your steadfast love. Hear these phrases, use them, pray them, treasure them, and just remember that God's word is meant to keep us, to guard us, to protect us. That's what he says there in verse 4. By the word of your lips, I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths, my feet have not slipped, because God is a firm foundation. Christ is our firm foundation. We have his word that is intended to instruct us and to keep us pure. Well, thanks for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.