Genesis17

Introduction 

How long have you been waiting for something? 

 Maybe you've been waiting for something until you feel you can't wait any longer – like for the holidays to come. Maybe you're still waiting for god to do something – to answer one of your prayers...

This is the fifth time God has spoken to Abram. 

 Key verses are v 1-2. 

He has already promised that Abram would be the father of a nation. After thirteen years, they still have no “proper” child of their own, (they cheated by Abram taking Sarai's slave as second wife!). The story is that by now Ishmael is just about a teenager! Abram is 99 years old. Sarai is 90. And God comes again and says, “I am God All-Powerful. Obey me and do what is right.  I will make an agreement between us and I’ll give you a huge family.” How long have you been waiting for something?

What’s God like? 

God says to Abram “I am God Almighty”. 

In Hebrew, it is “El Shaddai” …. Let's speak that Name out a few times, quietly, as part of our worship. So what is god like? He is “Almighty”. He is strong, and big... When we say God is big, we are not just talking about his size. We are talking about the way he exists . He exists more fully than we do , in a bigger way than we do . He is more real than we are , not less so. He exists as father, son, and Holy Spirit , at the same time. He really is father son and Holy Spirit , at the same time . Today is “Trinity Sunday” when Christians remember that God is that big – he is Father, Son and holy Spirit.

As father, 

He creates us, loves us , and looks after us , working things out in our lives

As son, 

he shows what God is like, he set up God's kingdom, and he died for our sins.

 As Holy Spirit 

he comes like breath to live inside us , to give us power, to help us understand, and to make us like Jesus .

 What does God want to do? 

First of all, a Covenant relationship. 

Through his encounters with Abram, God has been drawing him into an “Agreement” – a “Covenant”. We've already learned a bit about that, but to remind you, there are two things we have learned...

Firstly, this agreement is not a deal between equal partners. 

It is a “Vassal Covenant.” It is not an agreement to share things out equally. It is an agreement between a Master and a Servant. God didn't come to Abram and say, “Abram, If I answer your prayers, will you make me your God?” He doesn't even say “If you make me your God and keep my law, I'll give you what you ask for.” Now, what God says is “I want to bless you and do something very special in your life. You make me your God and do what I say!” God comes as the Boss, and chooses to enter into an agreement with us. He makes the rules. We don’t' negotiate with him. If we don't like it, we take the consequences. And God has the right to do that – because he is God.

Now, this Covenant was life-changing

 – so much so that even Abram's and Sarai's names were changed. Abram (“exalted father”) became Abraham (“father of many”, and Sarai was to become Sarah (both words mean “princess but the first probably relates to the dialect of her old home in Ur of the Chaldees and Sarah to the dialect of her new home, new life, new hope, in Canaan). Occasionally someone like me – who doesn't like their name – will change it just to get rid of it and gain a new image: “Max Power”. Usually it's no big deal, but it was a big deal in Abraham's time. Your name was your identity, it revealed something about you and your destiny; it pas part of your personality. In our covenant with Jesus, we have been given a new name – we have been called “Christians”, people of the Way is the New testament word for it. We have been given the name of Jesus, not to use as if it were our name, but the right to act on his authority.

Lambs. Photo by G Lilly

And when God begun to make that covenant with Abram, he did it with a sacrifice. 

 In the last chapter we read that Abram sacrificed an animal, and chopped the sacrifice in half.. Today, God makes a new agreement with us. A New Covenant. He does it through a sacrifice – the sacrifice of Jesus for us on the Cross.

Secondly, specific promise 

 But then there are specific promises he makes: for Abram, there there were going to be descendants – whole nations that would say “We come from Abram”. Specifically, Sarai, who was ninety, was going to have a baby. Now, that is very old. It was going to be a miracle, because poor Sarai had never been able to have any children even when she was young. But God was going to do that miracle for Abram and Sarai. And then there was a land God was going to give him, and his sons, grandsons, and descendants. Those are some pretty amazing promises.

God has made some pretty amazing promises to us, too. He has promised that when we believe in Jesus, we have life that lasts for ever. He has promised to give us his Holy Spirit, to live
inside us. He has promised to hear and answer prayers. He has promised to give us peace. He has promised we will never, ever be alone.

What does Abraham do? 

 I can find four things that Abraham did in this chapter:

 1. He fell on his face

Photo: D Shankbone. Creative Commons license

 – in awe and wonder and worship.

2. He laughed 

– not in unbelief, but in joy and surprise and astonishment. Abram is not questioning God, he is enjoying the moment as he reflects with joy on what God has promised.

3. He prayed. 

 He asked God to bless Ishmael, the son he already had through Hagar. Poor Ishmael wasn't the son God wanted to give to Abraham. But Abraham doesn't want him to be left out, to miss the blessing, so he prays with tenderness and compassion for Ishmael. It's really important that in the midst of times of blessing and joy, we pray tenderly for broken, lost people.

 4. He obeyed. 

 He, and every male in his family, was circumcised: a minor surgical procedure, a little cut to the body of each male. It was Abraham's signature to the agreement, a sign of commitment to God and to God's people. We don't do that today: Paul argued fiercely, that since the coming of Jesus, this “rule” no longer applies: “Circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit” (Rom 2. 29) “When you came to Christ, you were 'circumcised,' but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature” (Col 2. 11) Now, today, the covenant God imposes involves this kind of circumcision, the painful “cutting away of our sinful nature”. God's spirit comes to us like fire, to burn up the rubbish in our lives; he comes like water, not only to refresh but to cleanse. He comes like a dove – and in the Bible, a dove is a clean bird. Doves and pigeons were used as sacrifices. When the Holy Spirit comes he wants to inhabit clean, surrendered lives.

© Gilmour Lilly June  2015