Sermon Nuggets Mon June 18
Verses- Gen 17
Birth Announcements
Perhaps one of the most positive announcements we have in
our bulletins is when we announce the birth of a new baby to one of our members
or attenders. People delight in new
life. Babies are a sign of God’s creative genius and usually the joy it brings to
the family. People like to see the babies and even ask to hold them.
So much was made about the birth of some babies in the Bible.
Most notable Jesus who was virgin born as the promised one came to earth born
as a baby. The birth of Ishmael was a delight to Abraham, but not to Sarai.
Jealousy, envy, anger, and sin were mixed together as this child represented
the works of man seeking to carry out God’s promises. The birth of Isaac was
indeed a miracle for this couple was far beyond the age for having children.
The announcement wasn’t given to the world of the birth of a child, but reather
to the oldest couple to ever have a child. Abraham will be 100 years old. Sarai
will be 90 years old.
Even the celebration is a result of God’s covenant, or
agreement which we talked about with Abraham last week. His agreement was to
bless Abram and develop a nation by giving him the promised son. Indeed when we
come to king David we understand this promised one is to rule on the throne for
ever. So Jesus comes in completion to the various covenants and promises and
prophecies of the Bible.
Romans 15:8
says, "Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's
truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs."
Everything promised to Noah, Abraham, Moses and David and their descendants is
confirmed and secured by the coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
Jesus Christ.
As we approach the 17th
Chapter today, remember what has gone one before already. Twenty-four years
earlier Abram had left Haran, in obedience to the divine call Gen 12. After Abram and Lot separated and
Abram had defeated the eastern alliance of kings (chapters 13 and 14), God
formally made a covenant with Abram, specifying that his heir would come from
his own body (15:4), and giving a more exact description of the land that he
would possess (15:18-21). In addition, he was told the fate of his offspring
for the next several generations (15:12-16).
What we discussed last week
happened in Abrams life thirteen years previously. Abram had taken a wrong
turn, by following the poor advice of his wife, by taking Sarai’s maid, Hagar,
as his wife. This led only to disunity and heartbreak for all involved. So far
as we can tell, God has not spoken to Abram since that sin.
Now thirteen years later after waiting and believing that
God changed his mind, he gives them a birth announcement. They will be having a
baby. This announcement is like none other. It reminds us of the wondrous works
and promises of an almighty God.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues June 19
Gen 17: 1-3 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to
him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will
make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”
3 Abram fell facedown, and
God said to him
This Announcement recognizes the Planner
All
children are of God. Unlike what some of our legislators and politicians think
having a baby is not a private matter between a doctor, a woman, and her family.
It is also a spiritual matter involving God.
Psalm 8 reminds us that we are wonderfully and marvelously
made. Jer 1:5 "Before I formed you
in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you
as a prophet to the nations."
As I have greeting newborns in the hospital with their
parents I am reminded that each child is a gift from God. Each body houses a living
soul. There is a planner in her life, and a planner in my life, and planner in
your life- God.
Although you might say every life born is a miracle from
God, Abram and Sarah had an amazing surprise ahead because God was going to do
something he had never done before. They were to have a child born to them long
after they were suppose to have babies. Abram was 99 years old. Sarah was 90,
too late to have a baby.
But the
birth of the child isn’t to be a credit to Abe and Sarah, the best they could
do was come up with this adulterous relationship with Hagar to produce a son.
But God had a better idea. He announced for Himself a new name, a new
understanding for Abram to know God in a deeper way. There is another name in Hebrew that hasn’t
been used before referring to God. The name El Shaddai. It means the Almighty
one. They have a new and improved understand of the nature and person of God.
As you grow
in faith and that is what this whole series on Abraham is about. When you grow
in faith you grow in understand God better so you learn to trust him more. So
much of our difficulties come because we have created God in our image and
imagining him doing what we would desire to do and are disappointed or
surprised that God has his own ideas which are always better and wiser than
ours, though we may not understand it at the time.
God wants
Abram and us to understand him as the one who has all might and all-sufficiency. If Abram really believed God
could do what ever God wanted to do, however God wanted to do it, he wouldn’t
have sinned by taking Hagar as his second wife.
If he realized God was all sufficient in himself, and not dependent upon
creature strength, he could have waited even longer.
If you believe God is all powerful
and all sufficient that does make a difference how you do business. It makes a
difference how you look upon your riches. You even can look at your job
differently, knowing and believing God is in charge.
To believe that God is all mighty
and has no shadow of turning is a step of faith . We believe we are made strong
to do what He wants us to do. We don’t put our confidence in the changing economic
markets. We look at our lives and say we are not our own for we have been
bought with a price and cannot and should not live in ignorance when He gives
us his revelation and how we best should live.
Abram had been told that he would
become a great nation (12:2); now he is told that in fact he will become the
‘father of a multitude of nations’ (17:4). Beyond this, he will be the father
of kings (17:6). El Shaddai promised to be a God to Abram and to his
descendants (17:7), among whom we must include Abram’s spiritual seed (cf.
Galatians 3:16). The covenant was not only between Abraham and God, but between
God and Abraham’s seed, forever.
What was Abram’s response when he
sees the Lord? He fell facedown. It was too much for him to think that God
would even continue to work with him. It was too much as a sinner to realize
the love and grace of Almighty God. Because of who God is and his mercy and
love to us, it changes our lives and the way we live. God tells him two things.
Walk before me and be blameless. There will be a relationship that is intimate,
and one that is holy different than the rest of the world.
AS the sovereign planner of your life how does that make you
feel? What in your life is not in the plan of God?
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds June 20
Verses – Gen 17: 3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him,
4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many
nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I
have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will
make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my
covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants
after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your
descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a
foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants
after you; and I will be their God.
15 God also said
to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her
name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her.
I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples
will come from her.”
The Announcement Recognizes the Parents
In all birth announcements you
include the parents’ name. In fact if you just got the name of the baby it
wouldn’t mean much. What makes the announcement special is to whom the baby
belongs. This couple was looking forward to this child for years and years and
the longer the wait the greater the joy and blessing. It was a personal joy and
personal blessing.
Here is how God chooses to make the
announcements. The name Abram meant ‘high father’ or ‘exalted father.’ But now
his name was changed to ‘father of a multitude.’ How could Abraham ever live
this name down? By the grace of God, he would soon live up to his new name.
Here God says to Abraham, "Look, Abram, your old name means 'exalted
father.' Your trouble all along has been that you were looking for your own
exaltation. This must now be changed. You must lose your desire to exalt
yourself; you will stop trying to advance and please yourself. Your name will
now be 'the father of a multitude,' for great fruitfulness shall be evident in
your life. Because you have now learned that I am El Shaddai, your name can no
longer be 'exalted' but it must now be 'fruitful,' for you will be the father
of a multitude."
That is the name I want on the
birth certificate, and while we are at changing names the other parent will not
be Hagar, but rather Sarai and God desires to change her name too. Sarai means
"contentious." This speaks volumes of the home life of Abram and
Sarai. In Proverbs 21:9 {RSV}, Solomon writes, "It is better to live in a
corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman."
Having had a thousand wives, here is a man who knows of what he speaks! Sarai
is, therefore, a problem wife.
Yet in the New Testament, Peter
says that this woman is a model for all women to follow -- not by her name, Sarai,
"contentiousness," but by her new name, Sarah, "Princess."
She is never referred to as Sarai in the New Testament. God does not set her up
as a pattern for women until she becomes Sarah and loses her contentious
spirit. As Sarah she learned to develop "a gentle and quiet spirit, which
in God's sight is very precious," 1 Pet 3:4.
Sarai was not naturally thus. We
saw in the last chapter she was an argumentative woman, a nagging wife. But
she, too, had been taught by grace, and through the years she lost the need to
defend herself on every occasion and became Sarah, a princess, a queen, an
honored woman, having a meek and quiet spirit, very precious in the sight of
God.
Genesis makes plain that Abraham
did not father a multitude of nations in a physical or political sense.
Therefore the meaning of God's promise was probably that a multitude of nations
would somehow enjoy the blessings of sonship even though physically unrelated
to Abraham. That's no doubt what God meant in Gen. 12:3 when he said to
Abraham, "By you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
From the very beginning God had in
view that Jesus Christ would be the descendant of Abraham and that everyone who
trusts in Christ would become an heir of Abraham's promise. So it says in Gal.
3:29, "If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs
according to the promise." Or as Romans 4:16-17 says, "The promise is
according to grace in order to be guaranteed to all Abraham's descendants, not
only to [the Jews] but also to [Gentiles] who share the faith of Abraham, who
is father of us all, as it is written, 'I have made you the father of many
nations."'
So when God announced the parents
4,000 years ago, he opened the way for anyone of us, no matter what nation we
belong to, to become a child of Abraham and an heir of God's promises. All we
have to do is share the faith of Abraham. We don't become heirs of Abraham's
promises by working for God but by being confident that God works for us.
"Abraham grew strong in his faith, giving glory to God, fully convinced
that God was able to do what he had promised" (Rom. 4:20). That's why
Abraham could obey God even when obedience looked like a dead-end street. He
trusted God to do the impossible. He was to put his faith in God's promises.
That is how it is today. In a spiritual way we are sons of Abraham by faith
shown in our obedience to God’s word.
Jesus says in John 8:39, "If you were Abraham's children you would
do what Abraham did." Children of Abraham are people of all nations who
put their hope in God’s promise, specifically now revealed in Christ.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thur June 21
Verses- Gen 17:19-22
19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a
son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an
everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I
have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will
greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I
will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with
Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” 22 When he had
finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.
The Announcement Recognizes the Promise.
Now in all
the baby announcements we have received they have all told us the date of birth
and the Babies name. This is something God does as well, only he tells him that
it will be a year from now, and he even announces his name. It shall be Isaac.
This is the
first baby announcement that actually happened a year before the baby was born.
Some might know a month or so if they are going to have a C-section and the
obstetrician takes the baby through surgical means. Sometimes people might know
almost 9 months ahead when conception occurs, but at that stage even pregnancy
tests are not very accurate, but here there is an accurate pregnancy test that
takes place one year before the birth. It is the promise of the baby son to
Abraham and Sarah together.
He even
names the child. Isaac meals laughter. It is as if you call your child giggles
or smiley. In this chapter the name of the baby yet to come was to be Isaac.
His name has meaning as it true of most Hebrew Names. His name is laughter
because the parents laughed with joy at the birth later, as well as laughed
with the idea they would be the parents in their old age.
I remember
when God called me to preach. It is a laughing matter. I realized when I was
young I was quite shy. Quite often when the pastors role is unknown and I am with strangers, it is typical that I do
not say anything unless my role requires it. There are invisible students whom
the teacher seldom knows is there, because they are quiet and do their job,
neither being outstanding or a trouble maker. My teachers reported, “It is easy
to forget he is in the room.” And that was fine with me, so wouldn’t it be
laughable to think that God would pick someone like me to be a preacher?
The
prophecy or promise is that Isaac will be the patriarch through whom God will
birth a nation. He is the one by whom the promised one Jesus Christ will come.
He is the special child chosen by God to symbolize the promise.
Note how this covenant of the promise is all of God.
Abraham and Sarah are just the tools. Look at the “I”s. "I will make my
covenant between me and thee." "I will make thee fruitful."
"I will establish my covenant." "I will give unto thee."
"I will be thy God," and so on.
Note not only who does it, but the
promise in the future is also confirmed 5 ways.
I will make you very fruitful. I Will make nations of you,
I will establish my covenant. I will give you the land as an
everlasting possession, and I will be your God. The promise is sure
because God is able and carries out his promises.
What does that imply for you and
me? If my salvation rests upon this poor, puny person upon my desires, upon my
faithfulness, then I am in trouble, because I am so weak and fail. But if my
eternal salvation rests upon the great strength of God and his promises, then I
need to remind myself he is the one who holds the universe, He is the one
sustains the power. He is the one who gives the promises to Abraham and then to
me. And through Jesus his Son, then blessed be his name, my salvation is safe
and well; and now out of love He calls us to serve him with all our hearts.
That is His promise
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Fri June 22
Verses Gen 17: 9-14, 23-27
9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my
covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10
This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you
are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo
circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For
the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be
circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a
foreigner—those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household
or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh
is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been
circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my
covenant. ”
23 On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all
those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his
household, and circumcised them, as God told him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine
years old when he was circumcised, 25 and his son Ishmael was thirteen; 26
Abraham and his son Ishmael were both circumcised on that very day. 27 And
every male in Abraham’s household , including those born in his household or
bought from a foreigner, was circumcised with him.
The Announcement Recognizes the Particulars
Oh there
are some things in a baby announcement that include the particulars. There is
usually how much the baby weighed at birth and how long it is. I am not sure
why except we can tell how healthy, big the child is. Certainly it is important
to the medical staff that judges health by such statistics. We are aware of
those who are premature, who at unbelievable weights sometimes even a little
more than a pound lives. Or those unbelievable babies that are huge.
There was another particular that
was given to Abraham. In the Jewish
culture that day of celebration and party is the day when the baby is circumcised.
Isaac will be the first baby circumcised. It began as part of the covenant sign
of the Israelites with God. The cutting
of the fore flesh of the male had physical benefits for hygiene, but it had
other meaning that was symbolic and spiritual.
Symbolically, the flesh is put away.
Children that were begotten were to
be brought up according to God’s Word. As that young child grew up, his
circumcision was a sign to him that he was different from other boys—he
belonged to God. It was not the circumcision that saved the boy, but the sign
which would forever remind him of what God required to enjoy the benefits of
His covenant.
I was surprised in reading the
commentaries how often writers will relate this to infant baptism in the New
Testament, which is never taught or practiced. I missed it entirely, but think
it needs a comment. I think they are referring to Col 2“And you have been given
fullness in Christ who is the head over every power and authority. In him you
were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a
circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,
having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith
in the pore of God who raised him from the dead.”
It is clear the two rites symbolize
different things. The Old Testament symbol of the covenant is putting off the
flesh- just like God rejected the son of the flesh or man’s way of doing
things, like having the son Ishmael, son of a slave be the promised one. This was
a reminder to Abraham and all the Israelites God puts away the flesh.
This is the meaning of heart
circumcision. Abraham walked with me and walk blameless. Don’t do things your
way. Circumcision was not all that Abraham was required to do—rather, it was
the symbol of his relationship to God and signified what his moral conduct
should be. Circumcision, for Abraham, meant that he had bound himself to God in
this covenant. He looked forward to its blessings, and he also submitted to its
stipulations. It was a sign that we as a people will be obedient to the Lord.
The spiritual circumcision is to do away with the flesh (or sin) and go with
God.
It means to keep his commands, to
obey his voice, to serve him to desire his ways above your own. It means to
walk around in the love, characters, and attitude of Christ.
Now all of us need to live a life
dedicated and devoted to God in both the Old Testament as well as the New
Testament. In the New Testament, therefore, we no longer read of circumcision
of the flesh but of the heart. The heart is the symbol of the soul -- the mind,
emotions, and will, the whole personality. Every believer in Christ is to bear
on his heart the sign of Christ's Lordship. The total personality is to be at
his disposal. That is the Christian's circumcised life.
But baptism symbolizes something
different. Its emphasis is on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus
Christ; It symbolizes we have died to old self and been born anew. If you
compare the two symbols, circumcision was performed on infants eight days old
while Baptism in the New Testament is for believers. One is a private sign the
other a public declaration. One is for males only the other for all believers,
male and female. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant with Abraham; but the
sign of the covenant with believers is the Lord’s supper in the blood of Jesus,
not baptism.
But we can take this lesson.
Abraham by faith did what God told him to do. How much more should we who are
followers of Jesus do what He tells us to do and follow through on the outward
public sign of Baptism. I think all believers in Christ should be baptized. If
you haven’t, We’d be happy to show you what Gods’ word says, and have a
Baptismal service declaring your faith in obedience to Jesus
Abraham thought Ishmael could
fulfill the promise, but that was not Gods’ plan. God had purposed to give
Abraham and Sarah a child of the promise. Neither is there any other means of
salvation regardless of how good the person is, that receiving by faith, God’s
gift to us, His only son Jesus Christ.
When you become a Christian, you
did so by recognizing the right of Jesus Christ to be Lord in your life. You
did not, of course, understand what that would involve, but you saw, in one way
or another, that his willingness to save you involved his right to control you.
Holy Spirit begins to speak to you about personal matters of desiring to please
God. Verses 22-27 stress the important role of obedience in our Christian
lives. It is precious to God. Because of this, He recorded the circumcision of
Abraham, Ishmael, and all of Abraham’s household. The response of faith to
divine commands is always obedience.
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.
You and I cannot have a static
relationship with God. Not if we are truly born again. God will not allow this
to happen. He may allow us to fail such as Abraham often did. He may leave us
to ourselves for a time, as Abram found God silent for 13 years. But sooner or
later God will break into our lethargic lives and draw us closer to Himself.
That is what the Christian life is all about.
Pastor Dale
