Genesis 17 – The People of God

This sermon is from Genesis chapter 17 and is entitled, The People of God.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

It was delivered to Ekklesia churches on Sunday, August 9th, 2026.

The first time the disciples of Jesus were called Christians was in the city of Antioch,

and that's in Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

And other records from the early church actually tell us that it wasn't really used as a title of honor, but as a title of disregard.

Christian means little Christ.

So people wielded the term Christian to mock these people whose whole identity was wrapped up in being more like Jesus.

And to this charge, the early Christians said, yes, that's exactly who we are and what we are all about.

and they gladly claimed the title for themselves.

I remember when my friend and I were in high school,

we entered a talent competition,

playing guitar and singing a song together.

And we couldn't really think of a name,

but we liked this song that talked about

how only the loser wins,

referring to the place where Jesus said,

he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

And so we entered the contest as the losers who won.

That was our band's name.

But the name got shortened by the judges on our entry form to simply the losers.

Now, the first year that we played, we were atrocious, but at least heartfelt.

And there's a video floating around somewhere out there on his dad's video camera.

But when we came back the next year, we took third place in the region.

We'd improved a little bit.

So we became the losers who almost won.

Names are really important in Scripture.

And in Genesis 17, they're really important.

God introduces himself by a new name, and he gives Abram and Sarai new names.

And then he gives them a sign by which they will be marked as a people who are his own.

But the thing that really marks the people of God is their wholehearted allegiance to

him and their willingness to rest in his plan and promise.

a plan and a promise which is fulfilled in the person and the work of Jesus.

So what I want to challenge you with today as a people who are called by his name

is that we would be a people who not only take the name of Christian,

but that we would be a people marked by our wholehearted devotion to Jesus.

So with that in mind, let's read God's word together.

This is Genesis chapter 17, and we'll start with verses 1 through 8.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

When Abram was 99 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 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.

For those of you who are tired of struggling to say Abram instead of Abraham, you shall struggle

no more. Finally, in today's passage, Abram's name is changed to Abraham and God introduces himself

with another new name to Abraham. And then there's this offspring to whom this land is promised

not only for a while, but eternally. So there's a lot of significant things happening on a kind of

second layer of these first eight verses, and it has to do a lot with naming. So we touched on this

earlier in Genesis. I talked about it in the introduction, but naming in the Old Testament

was very important because it was filled with meaning about who somebody was. So let's start

with this name that God introduces himself by because it's a new name that we have not heard

before. God introduces himself first as God Almighty, which is the name El Shaddai. Some of us

who grew up listening to Christian radio in the 90s are familiar with this name thanks to a song

by Amy Grant. But unlike the pop song, which has you sing the name on repeat without ever really

telling you the meaning, God here uses it to tell Abram and us something about himself.

This name means God of all knowledge and strength. God is reminding Abraham who he really is,

and then he issues a command to him saying, walk before me and be blameless.

The first part, the walk before me, is an ancient kind of command that a ruler would

use on his subjects.

And what it means is, give me your allegiance.

But what about this be blameless part?

Haven't we already established at length that neither this man nor any man is capable of

walking like that?

God certainly hasn't forgotten that, but this is a good example of why we read verses in

And don't cherry pick them out for our own use.

This is not a call to religious or moral perfection.

This is a call to faith.

Because another word for blameless is righteousness.

And what did God say about where the righteousness of Abram came from?

Genesis chapter 15 verse 6 said,

Genesis 15:6

And Abram believed the Lord, and God counted it to Abram as righteousness.

His belief, his faith in God is what was counted to him as righteousness.

So this is a call to faith.

The first verse is just absolutely loaded.

So let me kind of reread it before we move on to Abram's new name.

So after 13 years of relative silence from God, God shows himself to Abram and says,

I am the God of all knowledge and strength.

So give me your wholehearted devotion and have faith in me and the promises that I have made

to you.

Abram proceeds to fall on his face, which for the record is the only correct response when

the God of all knowledge and strength reveals himself to you.

And God continued to reiterate this covenant that God will keep and starts to add some

color to this promise, some detail to these plans. There's going to be nations and there's going to

be kings that come from Abram. So God gives Abram a new name, Abraham. Abram means honored father,

but Abraham means father of many. And by renaming him, God is establishing who Abraham and his people

belong to, but this too requires faith. Can you imagine being Abram at this age without any

children, having to go to the people of your community and say, my new name is father of many.

That's how you are to refer to me from here on out. By the end of verse eight, we have the most

important naming of all, God says that for these people, I will be their God. This future people

will be primarily identified as the ones who have faith in the God of all knowledge and power.

Here is where it's really helpful for us as Christians to add another lens of sorts as we

look at this passage. If you remember when we started Genesis, I said to really understand it

we have to see from the perspective of the New Testament. When we start to do that, passages like

this one come to life because of the many ways that it is pointing forward to the Messiah and

the people of God. There's so much Jesus in Genesis. Remember that multitude of nations from verse 5?

Well, in Romans chapter 4, Paul gives us some New Testament clarity on just who that includes.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

This is Romans 4.16 says,

Here he means Jews and Gentiles.

As it is written,

Here in these verses, God was calling a people into existence who would live through faith

in him, a people who would be identified as those who are called by his name.

And there's another thing.

Who is this offspring?

that is this eternal covenant is being made with you and your offspring, God says.

This offspring is in many of the uses here singular in this passage.

So we're not just talking about a whole bunch of blood relatives.

We're also talking about a single person.

And this person, this king who will come from Abraham,

will lead these people and possess the land for eternity.

That's a long time.

Eternity means this kingdom will actually go beyond the new heavens and the new earth.

We're talking here about a kingdom that has no end.

And if you want some proof that I'm not kind of going out on a limb here, and you should

want proof, Galatians chapter 3 verse 16 says,

Galatians 3:16

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.

It does not say into offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one,

and to your offspring, who is Christ.

The promise of God is fulfilled in Jesus, just as the people of God will ultimately be those

who are found through faith in Jesus. The people of God always were and always will be identified

first by God as those who put their faith in him. And that's good news to the ethnic Jew who knows

not only from their historical record, but from their experience that they will never

perfectly keep the law and earn their own salvation. And that's good news to the Gentiles like us who

know that without the invitation and the righteousness of Jesus, we are the enemies of

God with no hope. I think there's an important clarification for us here in the modern day

as well when we look at the geopolitical layout of the world. The people of God are not identified

as an ethnic group of people, but as a people of faith, ultimately. And that means when we consider

something like the modern state of Israel, who is a mixture of ethnic Jews, some of whom are secular

and some are religious, and then there's Arabs who are Muslims, and there are many Christians of

all different ethnicities, that place does not by its title become the people of God.

Now, can I still pray for that country, for the salvation of those people, for the welfare

of the church in places like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv?

Absolutely.

And I do.

But by the same reasoning, a country who prints in God we trust on our money does not mean

it is a nation of Christians.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

The people of God are not those who pursue their own kingdoms and wish for the blessing

of God while they do it, the people of God are identified by God as those who have put their

faith in him and are pursuing his kingdom above everything else. But there's going to be a physical

sign as well, a physical reminder of this spiritual wholehearted surrender to God. So let's read this

next section about this sign of the covenant that is specific to Abraham and his offspring,

and then we'll talk about how that too is pointing forward to something in the New Testament.

This is Genesis 17, starting with verse 9 and going through verse 14.

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 and 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. Up until this point, everything has been sounding

really good to Abraham, an invitation to faith, to wholehearted surrender. And then

there's this abrupt transition from spiritual allegiance to a personal, painful, physical sign.

I'm not going to get into a description of the physical practice as much here because of the

sensitive nature of the topic and a mixed ages audience. Abraham would likely have said,

I'll say it's a sensitive topic. But I do want to help us understand that the meaning and

significance was there so that we can trace it forward to the church today. So first of all,

in the ancient Mesopotamian context, which is where Abraham is living, circumcision was not

likely a completely foreign idea to Abraham. He would have understood what God was referring to.

This type of sign or something similar to it is found in a few of the surrounding cultures,

And probably the most consistent record that we have is from Egypt.

This would have been a practice reserved for entrance into some of the elite levels of the

priesthood.

It was about consecration or being marked for holy use.

However, the practice that God is requiring of Abraham and his household is different

in a few key ways.

First, it is not just Abraham or priests who are being set apart as people of faith.

It is every male in the community.

This also includes both the natural born people and the people who have been purchased as servants

or slaves.

So an important side note here is that God is not endorsing slavery here, but is instead

accounting for what would have been a normal human practice in every ancient culture at

the time.

A practice that God did not institute or condone, but made sure to account for so that there was

no one in this people group who was considered outside the promise made to them.

So from the youngest at eight days old to the oldest, who was likely Abraham,

they all would be marked as people who had been set apart.

Second, in an age when kingdom building was directly tied to your ability to reproduce,

this was a reminder of whose kingdom you and your offspring were really a part of.

Certainly, this was a reminder for Abraham, who had tried to take this very thing into

his own hands with Hagar to build his own kingdom.

Finally, this removal of the flesh was symbolic of the work that God was doing spiritually

with these people.

It was a symbol of death to self and the necessary death of the sinful flesh that has been passed

down to all of mankind from Adam.

But to really understand this, we have to go to the New Testament again to see this in

light of Jesus and his work on the cross.

At the end of the day, circumcision was just a physical sign and a reminder of the covenant

that called for wholehearted allegiance and obedience to God.

There was a lot of confusion around this in the early church, which was made up primarily

of Jews.

The bigger question being, does someone need to be a good Jew to be a good Christian?

The specific question really being, do Christians need to be circumcised also?

Paul's answer in multiple letters in multiple places was no, to the great sigh of relief

at the time, I'm sure.

But to understand why, let's go specifically to Colossians chapter 2.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

And we're going to start with verse 11.

It says,

In him, Christ, also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off

the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. So the work of Jesus on the cross

has finished the work that was pointed to by this sign of circumcision.

This symbolic removal of flesh is no longer a necessary sign.

Why?

Because in Jesus, our entire body of flesh is put to death, and we are given new life

in his name.

Jesus was the one who endured being cut off in the way that Genesis 17.14 describes what

should happen to covenant breakers.

Only Jesus never broke even a part of the covenant.

He was perfectly faithful.

And he was cut off paying the price for those who were not.

Verse 12 of that same chapter points us to a new sign.

It says, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through

faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Our new symbol, our physical sign of new spiritual life is baptism.

Instead of just a symbol of our sinful flesh needing removed, it goes one step further,

symbolizing the complete removal of our sinful flesh in death.

Baptism is a sign in which we go under the water as someone dead in their sin,

and we are raised out of the water as someone who is alive in Christ.

Verse 13 and 14 in Colossians complete this thought, saying,

And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands,

this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Amen, right?

Thank you, Jesus, for what you have accomplished for us.

Thank you, Jesus, for new life.

And just as circumcision was a physical sign that followed physical birth, baptism is a

spiritual sign that follows spiritual rebirth.

This is why we practice believers' baptism after they have believed, because it is a

spiritual rebirth that baptism is a sign of.

And those who have been born anew by believing in Jesus want to be obedient to this command

and proclaim that rebirth by being baptized.

I can't tell you how excited I am to be celebrating a baptism in our own local body of believers next week,

because baptism is a response to the invitation of Jesus.

God's invitation to Abraham also causes Abraham to respond.

The last section of our chapter today, verses 15 through 27, we'll read just a few excerpts from,

actually shows three phases of Abraham's response to God's promise.

So in our last few moments in the passage, let's look at those and let's see how we might

identify with and learn from Abraham's response.

In verse 15, God also changes Sarai's name to Sarah, which means princess.

Because remember, kings are going to come from her.

The first thing that Abraham does is to fall on his face and laugh in amazement at what

God is about to do.

And Romans chapter four actually clarifies for us that that is why he was laughing.

It was in amazement.

You know, that kind of nervous laughter that comes out of you when something so unbelievably

wonderful happens to you.

I think of the videos of kids who get awakened one morning and told that they're leaving

on a surprise vacation, or the kids opening Christmas presents who got something they

really wanted but never expected.

I imagine this is the kind of laughter and amazement at realizing that he and his wife

are finally going to be having a son.

And the appropriate response when we really grasp the promises of God, when we really

understand who God is and behold him and what Christ has done for us, we can't help but

be filled with this sense of childlike joy.

We say things like, I can't believe he loves me, but I'm so glad that he does.

The second response of Abraham is a swing in almost the opposite direction.

It's a kind of grief over what receiving this promise means he has to let go of.

We know that while there were many mistakes made leading to the birth of Ishmael,

he was Abraham's son and Abraham loved him.

And it must have dawned on Abraham in this moment that the birth of Isaac meant a kind

of rejection for Ishmael.

So in verse 18, Abraham pleads with God that Ishmael might live before him, meaning that

God might bless and choose Ishmael as well.

And God says, no, because his plans are better.

And the promised serpent crusher who will save the people of faith will come through

the line of Isaac.

not the line of Ishmael. Now for the sake of Abraham, God will also bless Ishmael in a

different way, but the promise of God will be fulfilled through the plan of God.

I think we can identify with Abraham here on a human level. We can certainly identify with his

desire to see his own plans still work out. Remember that this has been his reality for 13

years now, watching his son Ishmael grow and having to deal with this bitter relationship

between Sarah and Hagar.

And you can't blame the guy for wanting all of that to come to something.

But the reality that Abraham has to come to terms with was that God's plan was better than his.

And the kingdom that God was inviting him into was greater than the one that he had tried to build with his own hands.

And Abraham chooses to believe God and he obeys.

At some point, Christians have to let go and even grieve the end of the plans they had for themselves.

Specifically, the ones that didn't align with the will and the kingdom of God.

The plans that were about our own flesh being satisfied.

The ones that were about our own fame and the ones in which we were building our own kingdom for our own glory.

We have this bad cultural habit of building our own kingdoms and then asking God to come

bless what we've built.

Instead of praying, your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth in my life as it

is in heaven.

Jesus talked about following him in the most explicit terms possible of taking up your

cross and following him daily.

And baptism is a picture of that.

It's a picture of dying to self and submitting your will to the better plans of a far better

king.

But friends, what we inherit, what we are given by this good king is in every way better than

anything else you will ever find because what we are given is Jesus himself.

We are people who are called the children of God now because Jesus has paid for us and

invited us himself.

So I invite you to respond by bearing his name and trusting him wholeheartedly.