The Abrahamic Covenant: Promise, Faith, and the God Who Calls Us Out

It's from Genesis 17, and we're going to read the first seven verses.

And this is the covenant of circumcision.

That's what I see all the men in the room across the right.

And when Abraham was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect.

And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.

And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.

Neither shall thy name any more be called Abraham, but thy name shall be called Abraham, for a father of many nations have I made thee.

And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and the seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.

May the Lord bless this reading of his most precious word.

One of these days I'll actually spend some time going through thee and thou and all the rest of us, those of you who may not be sure on how that works.

It's a a uh what they call an a an archaic form of English that we don't use nowadays.

And it's worth explaining.

If you want the best explanation, go to Yorkshire and start an argument because that's how they speak in Yorkshire.

And I know because I work up there a lot, or I work up there a lot.

We have walked through Eden's garden and through the flood waters of Noah's day.

We have seen humanity's dignity, humanity's frailty, and God's astonishing patience.

And today we're gonna take another step along that very long road of God's dealing or dealings with his people.

It's a step that we're gonna look at, which will shape the whole of scripture.

We're looking at a foundational pivot here.

God chooses to bless the world through a particular person, a particular family, and a particular promise.

And most people might think at this time that I'm talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, but actually I'm going way back before him in human terms.

This covenant is the backbone of the biblical story.

It is the seed from which Israel grows, the root from which the Messiah comes, and the promise that still enfolds us today.

So we're gonna walk with Abraham for a while.

We're gonna walk with Abraham for a little while tonight.

And we're gonna see what God might say to us through his journey because that's the idea of a sermon.

It's slightly different to studying deep theology.

It's trying to understand and make sense of what's going on.

I want to talk about the God who called us out.

The story begins with a call.

Interestingly enough, all our stories begin with a call.

It's not a gentle suggestion.

He's not saying, do you want to come walk?

Do you want to come out to see the sand?

He's saying, pack your bags and leave.

It's not a vague spiritual feeling.

It's a call.

Go from your country, take your people and your father's household to the land that I will show you.

And Abraham or Abram or Avram, depending how your Hebrew is, as he was first named, is 75 years old.

Now I'm not much younger than that.

And I couldn't imagine anybody saying to me, Ian, get your wife and get your kids and get whatever left of your family.

I'm going to take you somewhere else.

You don't know.

You don't know what's there, you don't know what the people are like, you don't know if there's any people at all, you don't know if there's any land, you know nothing.

But I want you to trust me.

I'm tempted to say to take you to self-fourth beats because that's about as desolate as it gets.

But I want you to trust me, says God, to take you away from everything you know, to leave everything that you can't move behind, and I am going to lead you somewhere, but I'm not telling you where.

And at 75 years old, Abraham is baffled.

And I think anybody at 75 years old who had that offer would also be baffled.

He's settled.

We settle, don't we?

We settle where we are.

He's established.

He's not looking for adventure.

He's not doing a Bilbo Baggins where he comes running out the hobbit hole and goes, I'm going on an adventure.

He doesn't want to do that.

And yet God calls him.

Tells him to leave everything behind.

Everything he's familiar with.

Everything he owns, his land, anything he can't move, his culture, his security, his whole identity.

And God doesn't give him a map.

Back to the Bilbo Baggins.

He doesn't have the map that shows him to the mount where the dragon is.

God doesn't tell him where he's going.

Doesn't have satanav.

Doesn't give him a timeline.

He doesn't say this journey is going to take you a day or a year or a month or a week or a century.

He just says, go.

And God doesn't give him a detailed plan.

He doesn't say what he's going to do when he gets there.

This is what I've got planned for you.

Here's your house, here's your land, here's your water.

None of that.

Just go to the land that I will show you.

19 just before 2000.

And I was only preaching for the one night.

And I walked through the door.

I'd never been here before.

I'd seen it from the outside.

I've been in for odd service, but I've never been into an evening service here.

And I don't know, I'm not even still not even sure how John Dalton, who was a secular at the time, dear man he was, got my details.

I think I I know, but I I don't know.

And basically I just got this call.

Would I come and speak a total Protestant free church?

And do you know that time when you walk through the door and you just go, this is home?

It feels right.

If I this is where I live now.

And that I know I can understand what God does.

He he places you where he wants you.

When he wants you, it's somewhere.

Whether you object to it, whether you fight it, whether you deny it, when you follow and do what God wants you to do, even if you think about and don't think you're not doing that, there's a like a bell rings as though this is right.

This is where I need to be, this is where I'm going to settle.

And this is what Abraham has happened to him.

It's the first truth of the Abrahamic covenant.

God promises often begin with a call to trust before we understand.

If I'd have known the hard work this place was, would I have come?

Would I have settled?

Doubt it.

But I came and I had a vision.

Abraham obeys, I obeyed.

Do you obey?

Didn't obey perfectly, none of us are perfect.

Didn't do it without question.

But obeyed.

He steps out into the unknown because he trusts the one who called him.

He is that still small voice in your ear, Paulie.

And that is where the covenant of Abraham begins.

Not with certainty, not with certainty, but with trust.

And it's a promise that then shapes history.

God's call is accomplished, is accompanied, sorry, by a promise.

It's a promise so vast that it stretches across the whole of Scripture.

He says God to Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, I'm going to call him Abraham from now on.

I will make you into a great nation.

Now, this is a 75-year-old man.

You know.

Okay, you're going to make me into a great nation?

It's pretty good.

I don't seem to have any children just at the moment, so we'll we'll we'll take that one, but he trusts the voice.

He says, I will bless you.

Okay.

I will make your name great.

I'm only a herdsman.

I'm nobody special.

I'm a father of a tribe, maybe, but they're not my direct sons and daughters.

And then he goes to the most strangest one.

You will be a blessing.

How's it being told you're going to be a blessing?

All people on earth.

Think about this one.

All people on earth.

So think about how far Abraham was back.

I don't know the figure, it's about 3000 BC, something like that.

And everybody who's born after that is going to be blessed by this one itinerant sheep herder, for want of a better phrase, from Ur, who's going to wander into the desert, and I suspect most of his family thought he was a raving idiot.

All people on earth are going to be blessed through you.

God doesn't say how that's going to happen.

He doesn't give a detail.

He just says it.

And Abraham believes him.

This is not a private spiritual exercise.

This is a world-shaping promise.

God chooses one man in order to bless all nations.

The covenant that is about to be made is not about privilege.

It doesn't give a privilege as we will see.

It's about purpose.

It's about purpose.

And the promise has three strands, like a rope that will hold the whole of the biblical story together.

It's a promise of land, a place where God's people will dwell, worship, and flourish.

It's a promise, secondly, of descendants, a family that will become a nation and through whom God's purposes will unfold.

And it'll be thirdly a blessing, a mission to bring God's goodness to the whole world.

And these three strands we through Genesis, through the prophets, through the gospels, and into the New Testament church.

They form the framework of God's redemptive plan.

And of course, all covenants have to be sealed.

In Genesis 15, God formulates his promise with a covenant ceremony.

It's one of the most mysterious and yet beautiful moments in Scripture.

It's a bit bloody.

Starts with animals being cut in two.

It's a symbolic act, though, used in ancient covenants to say, may this happen to me if I break my promise.

And normally both parties would walk through the two halves of the animal that's been sliced in two.

But not this covenant.

This covenant is something very, very different.

Something quite astonishing happens.

Abraham falls into a very deep sleep.

There's a smoking firepot and a blazing torch, which are symbols of God's presence, pass between the pieces of the animal.

Not God and Abraham, but just God.

This is the second truth of the Abrahamic covenant.

God binds himself to his promise even when, and because he knows that humanity cannot keep their side of the deal.

This is grace in its earliest form.

God takes responsibility for the covenant's fulfillment.

God carries the weight.

God guarantees the promise.

Abraham's role is quite simple.

Same as our role is very simple.

It is to trust.

God's role is to fulfill.

And then we get the sign of belonging.

So how do we know we belong to a covenant?

But for Abraham, in Genesis 17, God gives Abraham a sign of the covenant, circumcision.

For newcomers, that word can sound very strange and very uncomfortable, especially for men.

But in plain English, it is a physical mark given to Abraham's descendants to show they belong to God's covenant family.

This is why Jewish boys, even to this day, circumcised on the eighth day, I think it is.

And you get it in Islamic pieces because they too claim descent from Abraham, although their belief is wrong in the sense of they are not the children of the promise.

Who is the first book because just to separate it, the promise to Abraham is that he will have a son with Sarah.

It's very, very specific.

But Sarah thinks because she's so old, she she gives what was common in those days, one of her maids to Abraham to say, Have a child with this girl.

And he does.

And Ishmael is legitimately the firstborn of Abraham, but he's not the firstborn of Sarah, and therefore he cannot be the child of the promise.

It's not a badge, however, circumcision of superiority.

It's a reminder of identity, a reminder that God's people are set apart for his purpose.

And it is a reminder that covenant always involves the whole person, not just the mind, not just the heart, but the body, the community, and the daily life.

But we then see the warts and all of Abraham's family.

Scripture is wonderfully honest.

It really is.

It's not this nice fairy story where everybody is wonderful and God loves everybody.

The scripture's not like that.

The word of God is honest, it's based on real life, and real life has its warts and all experience.

Abraham is not flawless, is not a flawless hero.

He's a man of faith, yeah.

Like me, like you.

But you're also a man of fear, yeah, that's like me and like you.

He's impatient.

Yeah, that's like me and like you, and he has his doubts.

Yeah, that's me and that's you.

He lies about Sarah being his wife and tells Pharaoh it's his sister twice.

He tries to help God fulfill the promise by fathering a child with Hagar, who I talked about a bit earlier on.

He laughs at God's promise of a son in his old age.

That's what the name Isaac means.

It literally means he who makes me laugh.

He questions God about the future.

I hope we all question God.

That's what the Bible's for.

It's God's response to our questions.

He knows what our questions are before we ask him.

Read the book, they'll give you the answers.

Why does Scripture though include these moments?

Because covenant, covenants are not about perfect people, it's about a faithful God.

Abraham's failures do not nullify God's promise.

They don't make it as though it never existed.

Abraham's doubts do not derail God's plan.

And Abraham's impatience does not exhaust God's patience.

You see, this is the third truth of the Abrahamic covenant.

God's faithfulness is stronger than our frailty.

This is why we need God in our covenant and in our lives.

This is the God who provides.

One of the most difficult and profound moments in Abraham's story is the near sacrifice of Isaac.

It's a passage you'll all know, you know.

It's a passage that troubles many, and it rightly so that it does.

I mean, fancy being told by God that the only son that you have, by the way, I've also promised you you're going to be a father of nations.

The only son you've got, and notice this, the Bible says your only son, even though Hagar's got a son and he's been sent to the desert, but the Bible says your only son.

And when you said, tie him up and take him up to the mountain and sacrifice him.

And what would you do if you only had one son?

And you'd been promised by this God that you were going to be a father of thousands.

A nation so large that the stars in the sky can't number them, and neither can the uh bits of sand on the on the floor.

You've got one son.

God tells you to go and sacrifice it.

It's almost an impossible thing to imagine.

You've got to wonder.

We know the story ends out well because we've got the book.

We know what happens.

Can you imagine the confusion it must have caused to Abraham at the time?

And yet what does he do?

He takes his son to sacrifice.

Doesn't tell him what he's going to do.

He gets up to the mountain, ties him, puts him on the what what we'll call the altar stone, where he's a killer with a knife.

Even in this great heaven, I I pray none of you ever have to do a test like this.

Abraham.

He trusts that God will provide whatever is going to happen next.

And God does.

We have a ram caught in the thicket that wasn't there before.

A substitute for a son.

A life spared, Isaac freed, and a promise reaffirmed.

Because it was that ram that was sacrificed for God.

And the moment foreshadows the heart of the gospel.

The God who provides a substitute, the God who spares us, the God who keeps the promise even at great cost.

The God who allowed his son to die at Calvary.

Why then does this covenant matter today?

The Abrahamic covenant is not ancient history.

It's the foundation of our faith.

First, it shows us that God calls ordinary people, people like you and me.

Abraham wasn't a king.

He wasn't a priest or a prophet when God called him.

He was a bloke in an ordinary place.

But you know what?

God delights in calling the most unlikely people to his service.

It shows us our faith is a journey.

Abraham's faith grows over time.

It's not an instant, I believe, it's a transition.

And that's true for all of us.

Our faith grows, grows in grace.

It's tested, it's stretched.

Our faith is the same.

God is patient with our questions and our stumbles.

It shows us that God's promises are bigger than our lifetime.

See, Abraham only saw the beginning of what God promised.

He didn't see the end.

We're still working that one out.

And we too, we live in that tension between the promise and its fulfillment.

That fulfillment won't be until Christ returns.

It shows us that we are part of that same story, circumcised or not.

Paul, when he writes to the church in Galatia, that those seeking to belong to Christ are Abraham's offspring.

And he talks about the circumcision of the half being, making you a true Jew, not the circumcision of the flesh.

The blessing of God promised to Abraham flows to us through Christ Jesus.

We, all of us, are a part of the Abrahamic covenant.

And that tells you something vital.

It tells you that God calls on your life to begin with His promise, not your performance.

You do not need to have everything sources before you start.

You do not need to understand the whole of the journey.

You simply need to take the next step in trust.

And God will my make or will walk the covenant path with you.

And not only with you, but for you.

For those of us who have walked with Christ for many years, Abraham's story is a reminder that God is not finished with you either.

Faith is not static.

Calling is not limited to you and young age.

Abraham was 75 when God began with him.

There are still promises to trust.

There are still steps to take, and there are still blessings to give.

And the God who called Abraham will call his people today, here, now.

The Abrahamic covenant is the hinge on which the whole biblical story turns.

It is the promise that leads to Israel, to David, to the prophets, and ultimately to Jesus Christ.

The true offspring of Abraham, the fulfillment of the promise, a blessing for all nations.

In Christ the covenant is opened wide.

In Christ the blessing flows to the world.

In Christ the family of Abraham becomes a global people.

And in Christ the promise is fulfilled.

And as we continue our journey through these covenants, may we walk that with that same trust Abraham showed.

Imperfect, growing, honest, trust.

And prayerfully may we discover again that the God who calls is the God who keeps his promise.

Amen.