So...Circumcision

So, to catch you up in case you are new or haven't been here in a while, we're doing something this year called getting to know God.

That is the theme of our year so far.

We want to get to know God better because there is no better pursuit.

There is nothing you can do in life that is more meaningful than if you could just be closer to God.

If you could just be closer with him, if you can know him better, be more intimate in your relationship with him, have more understanding of who he is, more familiarity.

There is nothing more important than that.

And so we are dedicating ourselves to just getting to know him, spending time with him, and learning more about him.

And the way that we're doing that, the vehicle we're sort of using for that is a study of the life of a man in the Old Testament named Abraham.

He shows up very early in the story.

Genesis chapter 12 is where we really get to his story, and God chooses him and God uses him and his offspring to essentially reveal who he really is to the entire world.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Ultimately, bringing his son Jesus into this world through Abraham's line and showing all of us what God is really about.

The cool thing about Abraham's story is that at the beginning of the story, even though Abraham knows who God is, he knows of God, he does not know God.

He begins his journey with God like all of us with a lot of assumptions, a lot of misconceptions.

And bit by bit, as we explore Abraham's life as we go through scripture, and we look at every little encounter that Abraham has with God and other people and how he responds to the challenges that he faces in life.

Sometimes he responds great, sometimes, ugh, not at all.

He gets to see what God is really all about.

He gets to see God's nature and God's character revealed to him layer by layer, and we get to experience that as well.

So we're getting to know God through Abraham's story.

Now, I'm just gonna put this out there.

Look, in the church world, there's things you're supposed to do and things you're not supposed to do if you want to like grow as a church.

And we we've grown a lot in the last few years, and we haven't really followed a lot of those trend lines.

Like most of that stuff in the church world is treat everyone like customers, and we don't want to treat you like customers, we'd rather treat you like family, uh, which is why, as we've grown, instead of us at adding a service and having all kinds of new uh options, which would be very customer service oriented, we've been more like a family and said, hey, everyone needs to scoot in and park at lows.

Um, because that's what you do as a family, right?

You just park across the street and you make you pull up an extra seat at the table.

So we've we've grown, even though we've broken some of those rules, and I'm saying that because today we're breaking like uh a pretty big rule, but it's on accident.

And here's the rule basically: after Easter, like Easter's a big Sunday.

A lot of people come on Easter that maybe don't normally come or haven't been in a while, and then you know hopefully they come back the next Sunday, and so you want the message post-Easter to be something that everyone is really gonna connect with.

Like you just want you want that post-Easter Sunday message to be a banger.

Let me go ahead and read where we're at in Genesis chapter 17, and then you guys can decide for me whether or not this classifies as a banger.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

All right, here we go.

Genesis 17, 9.

Then God said to Abraham, Your responsibility is to obey the terms of the covenant.

You and your descendants have this continual responsibility.

And this is the covenant that you and your descendants must keep.

Each male among you must be circumcised.

You must cut off the flesh of your foreskin as a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Let's just stop for a moment and appreciate my incredible planning on this being the topic that we are at in Abraham's story the Sunday after Easter.

Just saying.

I don't know what I'm saying.

Okay.

From generation to generation, every male child must be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth.

This applies not only to members of your family, but also the servants born in your household and the foreign-born servants whom you've purchased, all must be circumcised.

Your bodies will bear the mark of my everlasting covenant.

Any male who fails to be circumcised will be cut off from the covenant family for breaking the covenant.

And then God said to Abraham, Regarding Sarai, your wife, her name will no longer be Sarai.

From now on, her name will be Sarah.

And I will bless her and give you a son from her.

Yes, I will bless her richly, and she will become the mother of many nations.

Kings of nations will be among her descendants.

Remember, at this point in time, they have no children of their own, and we'll get into some of that in a second.

Then Abraham bowed down to the ground, but he laughed to himself in disbelief.

How could I become a father at the age of a hundred, he thought?

And how could Sarah have a baby when she is ninety years old?

So Abraham said to God, May Ishmael, that's the son he had outside of the marriage, may Ishmael live under your special blessing.

But God replied, No, Sarah, your wife, will give birth to a son for you.

You will name him Isaac, and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as an everlasting covenant.

As for Ishmael, I will bless him also, just as you've asked.

I'll make him extremely fruitful and multiply his descendants.

He'll become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.

But my covenant will be confirmed with Isaac, who will be born to you and Sarah about this time next year.

When God had finished speaking, he left Abraham, and on that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael, great father-son bonding moment here, and every male in his household, including those born there and those he had bought, and he circumcised them, cutting off their foreskins, just as God told him.

Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised, and Ishmael his son was thirteen.

Both Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised on the same day, all, along with all the other men and boys of the household, whether they were born there or bought as servants, all were circumcised with him.

Just your garden variety post-Easter circumcision message.

Like in all seriousness, one of the values that we really have, and if you're new to his hands, it's important for you to know this, uh, because of actually some of the stories we're about to get to, we do not skip the hard stuff.

When we go through scripture, and that is what we do, we either go through entire books of the Bible together, or we pick giant stories and we go through those in detail.

When it gets to something difficult or challenging, or maybe even controversial, we don't sidestep that.

We're gonna go through it, and I believe that we actually grow best spiritually just like we grow in other areas of life when there's tension.

And that said, there's not many things that make me feel awkward.

Uh, if if I have any like quality that's admirable, and maybe it's that it's really hard to make me feel awkward, this might be an exception.

Um, I had flashbacks preparing for this to when I was in when I was in eighth grade, I'm I moved, I moved a lot as a kid.

But in eighth grade, I went to three schools in eighth grade, and my third school is in Memphis, Tennessee, and would come from Wisconsin.

And you know, being a new kid is hard.

I'm sure many of you have been the new kid, you know what that's like.

Well, in eighth grade, I was I was new, uh, I didn't know, I was from Wisconsin, and I was in Memphis, and they used words like y'all and ma'am, and I didn't know those words, and I had to learn a whole new language, the southern language, it was a whole different thing.

But you know, when you're a new kid in eighth grade, the last thing you want to do is not be cool.

And so one of the classes I happened to be in was health class, and at that time, when I got there, they just so happened to be learning about the changes that your body goes through as you enter your teenage years.

And the teacher had this wonderful idea to call on different students and have them read aloud from the textbook.

And on my first day, my first impression to all of these new kids that I, you know, wanted to impress because I was in eighth grade, was being called on to read the most awkward possible topic that you could think of, and I'm not gonna tell you what it was, but it was horrible out loud in front of all the class.

I feel kind of like that now.

That's what I'm saying.

I don't feel awkward very often, but I just read the word circumcision 15 times in front of all of you and everyone watching from home.

So, you know, there you go.

But we'll just embrace the awkwardness together.

Here's the reality, though.

Even though this is awkward and strange and all kinds, and and it's definitely making a lot of dudes feel very squirmish right now, even though that is the case, this interaction with Abraham tells us a lot about God.

And about it's it's deeper than we might realize.

And so uh rather than skipping over this and just being like, well, weird, okay?

No, we're gonna we're gonna examine this, we're gonna ask some questions.

I've got five questions actually that I think help us understand this in a really powerful way, I hope.

And at the very least, we'll make it through this together.

All right?

So I want to start with one.

This is kind of a this is a really interesting question.

This isn't really a theological question, but it is sort of a be in awe of God question.

And the first question is like, why on day eight?

Why on the eighth day?

What God said to Abraham was, you must circumcise every male from this point on that is born, every new kid that gets born as part of your family, gets circumcised on day eight.

Why day eight?

In the Bible, there's really not a huge significance to the number eight.

There's certain numbers in the Bible that just you go, oh, I there's connections there, like the number seven.

God, seven days, God creates the earth.

The number twelve, right?

We saw that number show up here.

Twelve disciples, twelve tribes of Israel.

The number three is very significant in the Bible.

The number eight, not not really.

It's not a whole lot of connections.

Why day eight?

This is just a quick one, quick aside.

Um, I want to read for you guys.

In fact, if you have it on the screen, I don't think it's in my notes.

Okay, check this out.

This is modern science.

Because circumcision is still a thing, there's there's health benefits to it, it's all whatever, we don't have to get into all that.

Uh but what I I put it in search.

What is the optimal day to circumcise a child?

And it says day eight.

Research indicates that vitamin K levels, crucial for blood clotting, reach their peak in newborns on the eighth day of life.

On this day, there's a protein that's essential for clotting levels, and it exceeds 100% of normal, which minimizes the risk of bleeding.

And by the way, in your in the human body, that peaks on day eight and immediately drops after that for the rest of life.

Okay, so in the ancient world, what you have to understand, and there's a really lot of interesting things in the Bible like this, it's very much like the diet that God prescribes the people of Israel eat when he gives them the law of Moses, which will be centuries after this.

To this day, it is one of the healthiest diets a human being could ever eat.

And it's not like the ancient world knew much about nutrition.

They didn't have deep scientific knowledge at all.

There's no logical reason why, if this was just a made-up story, why the people in Abraham's time could have ever possibly known that day eight is the optimal day to do any type of surgical procedure on a newborn.

Because that's the day that your blood clots at the absolute peak.

But in that world, there were some things, just to know, that circumcision solved, like urinary tract infections, not fun for anybody.

I'm sure some of us have had those.

But in a newborn in the ancient world, that could lead to severe kidney damage, lifelong illness, all kinds of things.

And circumcision actually protected against that in a major way.

And so it's just, it's it's such an interesting thing, and it's one of those things where you just look at scripture and you have to be in awe that maybe God is real and knows what he's doing.

Because it would take science thousands upon thousands of years to understand that.

And God tells the people, and again, this is I mean millennia before Jesus even arrives, right?

We're talking 3,500, 4,000 years ago.

Hey, by the way, do it on the eighth day.

Just trust me on that.

There's moments like that in the Bible that you just go, wow, that's that's at the very least really interesting, and it just reminds us that God knows what he's doing.

Okay, so that's the quick one.

Let's talk about this one in a little bit more detail.

Why, why blood?

Like, why is we did a series a couple of years ago as we were going through the entire story of the Bible called So Much Blood.

Why is there so much blood in these stories?

Especially of the ancient people like Abraham.

There's animals being sacrificed all the time, and there's just all of these, hey, I we got something we're gonna do.

Here's what I want you to do.

We we looked at this a few weeks ago.

God was like, Abraham, I want you to take a bunch of animals, cut them in half, all right?

Just ooh.

And then we get here, and it's like, hey, I got something I want you to do, and it's it's gonna involve some blood.

Bear with me.

Like, why?

Why, why, why blood?

And it's it's interesting, there's multiple levels to this, I believe.

On one hand, you have to understand that in the ancient world, blood was was very, very important.

I mean, it still is today, but not just medically, symbolically.

Blood was always associated with with life.

And in the ancient world, there were concepts called blood covenants.

And this was a very common thing.

When kings would enter into a covenant with one another, an agreement.

Usually that was when one king had conquered a lesser king, and a pact was made, that pact always involved blood.

If there wasn't blood involved, it's like it wasn't serious.

And so you can just understand that at a very basic level.

When you look at the Bible and you see these animal sacrifices that are taking place, the ancient people of this time, just if blood wasn't involved, it wasn't a serious thing.

You know, in our world today, maybe it would be like if your signature is not on it, that is not a binding document.

But in their world, it was blood.

And on one hand, you can look at this and just understand that God meets people where they are.

So when he's engaging with the people of the ancient world, he's meeting them on their level and he's doing things that they will understand.

He's doing things for them and with them that they will go.

I have a category for that.

That's actually an idea called progressive revelation, boring term.

But it's the idea that God is slowly revealing himself and what he values to people bit by bit as they are able to process it.

Not just individually, but even like society.

On a macro level, as society kind of evolves, God is able to, okay, now you're ready for the next part.

Now you're ready for the next part.

By the time you get to the prophets, God is like, I don't really care about your animal sacrifices.

Like, that doesn't really move me.

I just want you to be obedient to me.

You almost get this idea that God is He's meeting the ancient people where they are in terms they can understand, but it's He's doing it as He is getting them to a certain place.

But I think it's more than just that.

There is something about the blood.

In fact, we see this in Hebrews chapter 9.

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

It says, that is why even the first covenant, and this is New Testament talking about the old covenant that Jesus replaced.

The first covenant was put into effect with the blood of an animal, right?

The Mosaic covenant, this is gonna be after Abraham, if you're not familiar, the people of Israel go into slavery, and then they're freed, and they enter this covenant with God at Mount Sinai, and that's where they get the Ten Commandments, and it's like God says, Hey, here's how things are gonna work between us.

And a big part of that was sacrifice, animal sacrifice, a lot of blood.

And he said the first covenant was put into effect with the blood of an animal, for Moses uh for Moses had read each of God's commandments to all the people.

He took the blood of calves and goats along with water, sprinkled with the book of God's law and all the people, using hyssop branches and scarlet wool.

Then he said, This blood confirms the covenant God has made with you.

And in the same way, he sprinkled blood on the tabernacle and on everything used for worship.

In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood.

For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness.

There's this concept that God is introducing to people.

And part of that concept is that sin, which is all of the all the things we do that are not in line with God's will, that's when we decide that our way is better than God's way, no matter how destructive it might be, no matter how wrong it might be, and we all do that, sin is really serious, and and the wages of sin is blood, it's death.

And so sin has to be dealt with seriously.

A lot of times, I think, guys, we look at the Old Testament and we feel like God is just really overreacting.

Like things are happening, and God seems like, whoa, man, chill out.

Could it be that God is not overreacting?

Could it be that we vastly underestimate the seriousness of sin?

Maybe God is actually reacting appropriately, and we as people have a tend to be like, it's not a big deal, but it's a really big deal.

And so there's this concept that with sin, there has to be a price paid, and that price has to be paid in blood.

Now, we know where the story ends.

What is this ultimately pointing to?

Jesus.

Because the new covenant that we're under, it was also paid for in blood.

It's just not the blood of an animal, and it's not our blood, but it's the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And we'll talk about that in a little bit.

So there's this concept to the ancient people that, hey, blood is like, if there's not blood involved, it's not purified, it's not consecrated, it's not real.

And we see this in other stories.

For example, the story of Passover, right?

The if you're not familiar, the people of Israel, their slaves in Egypt.

It's the moment that God really gets them out of Egypt, and there's this massive plague, and the firstborn child in all of Egypt is going to die, unless what?

Unless they took some blood.

We see this in Exodus 12.

He says they are to take some blood, some of the blood, and this was from an animal, and smear it on the sides and the top of the door frames of their houses.

It was like they had to mark their houses with blood.

And because they were those houses were marked with blood, judgment passed over them.

Guys, because your life, if you've given your life to Jesus, because your life has been marked by the blood of Jesus, the judgment that your sins would normally like require, that's been passed over.

It's the same thing.

And some of these are just beautiful pictures of, well, beautiful might be an interesting word, bloody pictures of Jesus, okay?

Exodus chapter 29, we'll move on after this.

Exodus 29 · chapter mention

Uh, this is God actually talking to the people who are building his tabernacle, which is where they would worship and all the stuff that they would use for that.

And he's like, and he basically tells them to just make these beautiful garments.

Just make these awesome things and beautiful garments.

He goes, then take some of the blood from the altar and some of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his sons and on their garments.

In this way, they and their garments will be set apart as holy.

That's a crazy idea.

Like, hey, after you make these beautiful clothes, just throw some blood on it.

And that'll make it complete.

We would look at that and go, you just ruined it.

Now it's stained, I'm never gonna get this out.

But in their concept, again, God is meeting them where they are.

Blood is a purifier.

Blood was viewed as sacred because it is sacred, it's life.

And so, why blood?

Why is there this, why is God requiring Abraham to do something so bloody?

Well, in large part, it's because Abraham wouldn't understand how serious this commitment and covenant was if blood wasn't involved.

And there's something in the ancient world about this idea that that without the shedding of blood, sin is not covered.

And that ultimately is that ultimately comes to its conclusion with Jesus.

Okay, are you are you tracking with me?

Keep in mind, we're still talking about circumcision.

All right?

We good?

Okay, good.

There might be fewer people at the newcomer gathering than we have ever had today, and we'll see.

We'll see.

Here we go.

But let's ask another question.

Okay, that's why there's blood, and that may not be a complete answer.

I probably I could probably talk for hours about that alone, but let's move on.

Why now?

Why at this point in Abraham's story?

Why not at the very outset?

Maybe it's because Abraham would have said no.

In fact, a famous comedian uh once made a joke about this, and I won't I won't do it word for word, but he said, Man, those challenges in the Bible really ramp up in difficulty because it's don't eat an apple, build me a boat, circumcise yourself.

You know?

And he made the joke like Abraham must have been like, hey God, what if I built you two boats?

What if we made that deal?

You know, like this is a it's a big thing to ask someone to do, and and why does God do it at this point in the story?

Abraham is 99 years old.

Why not when when he first called Abraham?

When Abraham first got called to follow God, he was 75.

Why not at the outset?

Why not five years in?

Why at this point in the story?

And I think this really matters.

I think this is where we begin to see some of the character of God in very nuanced, layered ways.

Well, let's understand what has taken place directly before all of this has happened.

And the reality is that Abraham has gone way off the reservation and gone way outside of the lines of what God would have him to do.

There's this major failure moment in Abraham's life right before we get to this story.

And if we go back to Genesis 16, I won't read the whole story, but this is how it begins.

We covered this a few weeks back.

Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had not been able to bear children for him.

But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.

So Sarai said to Abram, The Lord has prevented me from having children.

Go and sleep with my servant.

Perhaps I can have a child through her.

And Abram agreed with Sarai's proposal.

So Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife.

This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.

So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar and she became pregnant.

Now that was not God's plan.

Not at all.

That was not God's promise.

And as as awful as that is conceptually, and it led to a tremendous amount of pain and division, and that's pain and division, by the way, if you study history, that still exists today.

It had to break God's heart.

It had to break his heart.

Like, have you ever have you ever done something that really hurt one of your parents and you didn't realize it?

Like you just did something, and and the person who's raised you is it's like they're heartbroken.

We've all we've all done that.

I have memories of that.

In fact, I have this one really specific memory, and I doubt my dad even remembers this.

Maybe he does.

But I have a memory from when I was about seven years old.

Where in a moment I saw the hurt in my father's eyes that I caused, and just a moment of selfishness.

And so to paint the picture for you, child of the 80s, you know, video games were all the rage in the 80s.

How many were of you got here in the 80s?

I'd just love to see my fellows, not that many of us, okay, but enough.

There you go.

I love the 80s.

So there was there was this video game that I really wanted when I was a kid.

I was about six, seven years old, and it was a handheld game.

It was the X-Men handheld game.

And I don't know if this was the, I don't know if anyone remember this.

It may have been the early 90s by this point.

I don't I can't quite remember how old I was, but I wanted this for Christmas.

Now you might be looking at this, especially some of you who are younger, and you're like, that doesn't look like much.

You haven't seen the gameplay.

The graphics will blow you away.

Guys, show this real quick.

I mean, you'll understand why, as a child, if you look at the footage, um, if you guys have that, go ahead and bring it up.

Um, yeah, guys, this how could you not want this for Christmas?

Look at the it is so technology, it's amazing.

Great technology, right?

All right, you can take that off.

I wanted that real bad, real bad.

And I didn't open it on Christmas Day.

And I remember looking at my dad, and you know, doing that thing that kids do where you try to like hint and you think you're being subtle, but you're seven years old, ten years old, whatever old I was.

And I went, I guess I can get that X-Men game next year.

And I remember my dad's like heart sunk.

I remember he just kind of went like that.

And he got up and he went back, and I guess they had purchased it, but had forgotten to wrap it, or what I don't know.

He had it.

Maybe he was gonna give it to me later, maybe they were gonna give it to me for my birthday.

I don't know.

But he came back and he goes, Here.

And I remember being both excited and really ashamed at the same moment because I'd had a great Christmas, and who cares?

You know, and my parents weren't like loaded or anything like that at all.

It wasn't, but there was just this thing where it was like right after I'd opened everything, my first interaction with my dad was like, you know, the thing I didn't get.

And I could just I remember his expression, I remember his face.

And it and it hit me as a kid, however old I was like, oh, I I really hurt his I really hurt his feelings.

You know, we don't think about the fact that God loves us.

I mean, he loves us so much.

He is our father, he has adopted us, he's done everything for us.

And do we have the ability to break his heart?

Do we have the ability to like surprise him?

Well, if Jesus is any indication, we do.

I mean, so many times Jesus was heartbroken at the way he was received or responded to.

And so you have to understand God's perspective on this.

God has made promises to Abraham and he has blessed Abraham.

Abraham, at this point in time, he is in a whole different category of life than he was before.

He has been enriched, his household has grown, he is a man of tremendous wealth.

And from the outset, God made him some promises.

We see this in Genesis chapter 12, at the very beginning.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

It says, The Lord said to Abraham, this is before his name has been changed to Abraham, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.

God promises him descendants.

He promises him blessing.

And Abraham has received much of that, just not the first part years later.

But that's not the only time God makes him that promise.

Later, in Genesis 12, 7, even though it's only a few verses later, some some time has passed.

It says, Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I will give this land to your descendants.

So again, God promises him descendants.

And Abram continues to grow in wealth and importance, and his household expands, and he's a very, honestly, he's like a powerful man.

He has hundreds of people in his household that are soldiers.

I mean, this is a different kind of dude.

We get to Genesis 15.

Sometime later, the Lord spoke to Abram.

This is many years after all of this.

He came to him in a vision and said, Do not be afraid, Abram, I will protect you, your reward will be great.

But Abram replied, O sovereign Lord, what good will all your blessings be when I don't even have a son?

Since you've given me no children, Eliasar of Damascus, a servant in my household, he'll inherit all my wealth.

You've given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.

And the Lord said to him, No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.

And then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can.

That's how many descendants you'll have.

And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.

What a powerful moment.

You know, you have this back and forth with God.

Well, God, yeah, I have all this stuff.

Thanks a lot.

But I guess I'll get the video game next Christmas.

You know, it's like that moment.

I still don't have a son.

And God's like, Abram, trust me, the sun is coming.

The sun is coming.

And by the way, can we just appreciate the fact that God gave Abram a bunch of wealth before he gave him kids?

How many of us would have loved that to have happened in our lives?

I mean, I look at Abram like, you have no idea how good God has been to you.

Because most of us get kids when we don't have any money, and then we never have money again.

And that's the story, right?

So, like, God over and over again has promised, I'm gonna bless you.

And look, haven't I been faithful to you?

Haven't I proven that you can trust me?

And I'm gonna bless you with the sun.

And by the way, let's go outside, let's take a walk, look up at the stars.

What a cool moment with God.

I'm gonna give you this many descendants, just trust me.

And then after that, in a moment of weakness, foolishness, whatever you want to call it, Abram decides to go along with this idea.

Even though God has promised him this blessing, he's like, I'm gonna take matters in my own hands, I'm gonna go outside my marriage, I'm gonna have a son outside of my marriage with this other person, and that's gonna be how I make God's will happen.

We talked about this several weeks ago.

But man, that had to have that to have broken God's heart.

And keep in mind that up to this point, God has required nothing of Abraham.

I I guess he required him to go, like initially when he said, go and leave your native country.

And Abram did do that, and that's a big thing.

But other than that, I mean, it's just God's blessing him and blessing him and blessing him, and Abraham's just kind of like, woo-hoo! And Abraham he makes a bunch of mistakes.

He does some really dumb things, and God still blesses him and blesses him, and even after, even after the whole Ishmael thing happens, he still gets blessed.

But in terms of that question, why now?

It's almost like there's this point in the story where God says, you know what, Abraham, look, something's gotta change, man.

At some point, I need you to trust me and I need you to actually walk in obedience to me.

And so I'm gonna need you to do something.

I'm gonna need you to do something because I need you to understand that while the vast majority of this is on me to bless you, and it there's parts of it that are on you.

And I'm gonna need you to I'm gonna need to know that I can trust you to do what I ask you to do.

You know, we don't have God's mental journey recorded for us here, but you get this idea that the timing of this is like, hey man, you've just messed up in a major way, and I'm not canceling my promises, I'm not taking it all away from you, but I need you to like get serious.

So there's an interesting element to the timing.

Let's go to another question though.

Why why down there?

You know, like, can we just address that for a minute?

I'm not being humorous here.

It is interesting.

Like, why not an ear piercing?

You know?

Why not a finger prick?

You know, like, hey, let's blood.

Why don't you like, let's do that?

You'll have a scar on your finger and you'll always remember the promise I made you, you know?

I bet Abraham would have been like, what if, how about my pinky?

You know, let's go there instead.

Why that is uh it's just it's kind of an unavoidable thing.

But it's it's interesting, right?

What think about it this way.

What is the ultimate promise that Abraham is truly after?

It's its descendants, right?

Its offspring.

And it's not just Abraham's descendants, it's the descendants that will come after him and generations after him, and ultimately what he's what God has told him is kings are going to come from your line.

In fact, the king of kings is going to come from your line.

Now that's not going to happen for millennia.

And you know, we we have a pretty amazing tendency to forget the promises that God has made for us, or even forget what God has done for us.

How many of us have done that?

God has been super faithful to you and blessed you, and maybe your greatest prayer has been answered, and then months later you're stressed out of your mind and you don't trust God with it.

It's like you forgot what he did.

I've had that happen in my life so many times.

Even here at the church, there's been times where God has blessed us in unexpected ways and taking care of problems that we didn't know how to solve, and then years later there's a problem, and I'm like, I don't know how you're gonna do this, God.

I don't know what we're gonna do.

It's like, oh yeah, God.

You know, there's something about there's a it's poetic, at the very least, it's poetic.

Where God knows that the people of Israel are going to have to hold on to this promise that that come that coming from your lineage, your offspring, there will be kings, and ultimately a king, that will come from you, who will never be dethroned, who will ultimately bless the entire world.

That's the promise.

And I'm not just being tongue-in-cheek, but what's the one area of the body that God could put a reminder for Abraham and all the descendants after him to remember, I'm not, I'm just saying you it's effective.

Okay?

You cannot take that away from God.

It is an effective reminder, but it is barbaric as it may be.

Remember, God meets people where they are.

It's it's effective.

And the generations after Abraham, they need a reminder, they need a physical reminder that their offspring will produce a king.

Because they're gonna be tempted in many different ways to abandon that and to just mingle and mix with all the pagan nations around them and just become like them and worship false gods, and some of them do that.

But God gives them this reminder, this permanent physical reminder that your offspring, your seed, it will, the world's gonna be changed through your line.

And so, as far as when it comes to the ancient world, I really it's effective.

Can we just admit that and move on?

Okay.

Last question.

Why is that not a big deal anymore?

Why not now?

Now, circumcision still exists, it's still actually incredibly common because, again, the cool God stuff, there's like major health benefits to it and all kinds of things, right?

But it's not it's not required anymore.

Like you don't, if you're some of you guys have just had kids and you're welcome to circumcise them on the eighth day, uh, that's the day that the clotting is at the highest in the body.

And so that's what doctors recommend.

But if you don't do that, it's not like, oh no, God's gonna be mad.

In fact, this becomes a major topic in the New Testament because if you know the story of the New Testament, the church begins within the Jewish community, right?

The our faith begins in the Jewish faith because Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but then pretty soon it expanded outside of the norms of that faith, and now people who were not Jewish are becoming followers of Jesus, but guess what those people were not?

Circumcised.

And they weren't super excited about that idea, if you can imagine that.

And so there was an actual huge debate in the early church, and this was a huge debate.

I don't know if any of you have grown up in churches that were going through debates.

How many of you grew up in the church of some kind, in a church?

I mean, like, okay.

I I grew up in a I got to witness some dumb debates in churches.

Like music style, you know.

I I remember we had a at a church I was at in high school, the worship pastor got fired because he didn't do enough hymns.

He was mixing in praise and worship music.

I love hymns, by the way.

We did one this morning.

I love it when we do hymns.

But I remember this pastor standing up on the stage and he said, I'm not a f he said these words, I'm not a fan of praise and worship music.

And by the way, uh just for context and how old I am, that was like, our God is an awesome God.

Any of you know that one?

That's a song that can last 10 years.

That's a never-ending song.

If you've ever been in that church environment, it's just like, our God is an awesome God.

Our God is an awesome.

It's just amazing.

It's an ever-looping song.

Um, but that was what he meant by praise and worship music.

I remember having the thought as a high school kid when he said, I'm not a big fan of praise and worship music, and the the like the sarcastic 16-year-old in me was like, I don't think you're the audience.

I didn't say that out loud.

But I thought that, like, isn't that guy, you know?

But that guy got fired, and there have been debates over can we wear hats in church?

We settled that one.

We can, and I'm actually gonna teach a class on the theological justification for why you can wear a hat in church, okay?

This is not just a preference, this is this is this is a biblical interpretation.

Um so churches, but I'm sure churches could split over hats.

Well, the thing that was really forcing a split in the early church was the concept of circumcision.

Because to the Jewish people, I mean, you can imagine they're like, hey, we've all been doing this for thousands of years.

They can do it too, if they're gonna come and be part of this.

But it was a genuine question.

Well, like, do they have to become Jewish to become Christian?

Because they were Gentiles.

It wasn't part of their culture, their world, and now they're following Jesus, but Jesus, he's he's fulfilled the old law.

Like the old law, Paul writes about this a ton in Galatians especially, but like the old law, that's been fulfilled through Jesus.

Not that there isn't value in the Ten Commandments and in many of those principles, but Jesus has fulfilled the requirements of the law.

He paid the price that all those animal sacrifices were were were paling in comparison to be able to pay, but he he did that.

So do these people now have to get circumcised?

And Paul is like, no, they do not.

And there was a huge debate.

And Paul actually got pretty heated about this, just so you know.

In fact, one of the craziest things you will ever read in the Bible, um, this is in, let's go to Galatians chapter five.

In this situation, what's happened is uh there's a lot of people who have entered the church and they're actually pushing for circumcision really hard, and they're they're Paul's mad about it because he's looking at these people and he's like, Why would you go back to the law?

Why would you go back to try to justify yourself to God by the law when you've been freed from the law and now you're under grace and mercy?

Why would you go back to that?

That's just religion at this point.

That's that's not what this is all about.

And so Paul tells the Galatians, you were running a good race, talking about their freedom from the law.

You were running a good race.

Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.

He's like, this is not from Jesus, this is not from God.

A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

Now that's a quote.

He's actually quoting Jesus, and Jesus was referencing religion, religion being the man-made rules and all the all the things that basically, even if it's not man-made, the the idea that it's by our actions that like God is wow, I'm so impressed with you.

Even if you obey every aspect of the law, that can't change your heart.

Only God can change the heart.

And so Jesus warned his disciples of religion, the religion of the Pharisees, he said, it's like yeast.

If you let that kind of self-righteous, I'm awesome, I'm so much greater than other people because I do it the right way, if you let that attitude get in your heart, ooh, it'll take over everything.

Okay?

Paul goes on to say, I'm confident in the Lord that you will take no other view.

The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, this person there that's talking about you have to get circumcised, will have to pay the penalty.

Brothers and sisters, if I was still preaching circumcision, why would I be being persecuted?

In the case the offense of the cross has been abolished.

In that case, then the offense of the cross has been abolished.

And this is the line that's like, it's crazy.

Paul says, as for these agitators, these people that are telling you you have to be circumcised, I just wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

That's in the Bible.

Paul says, these guys are so passionate about circumcision, they ought to just go the whole way.

Some of Paul's most intense language is reserved for that.

So Paul says, no, no, you do not have to do this anymore.

We've entered a whole new place, a whole new covenant with Jesus.

Everything else before that, it was just a shadow of what this is all about.

It was just like a picture.

And some of those pictures are tough pictures.

You know, like animal sacrifice.

That's a really brutal thing to think about.

But we have a sacrifice that's covered our sins.

Like God didn't just say, ah, never mind.

Y'all are good.

Sin is what it's wiped away.

No, Jesus died.

He paid the price as a sacrifice with his blood.

And now we've been covered by that.

So so much of what's in the Old Testament is just a picture of what's to come.

And the reason that we don't live under the law anymore, and this circumcision kind of becomes in the New Testament really like the it kind of becomes one of those those like pivot moments where we go, is are we really free from the law?

Are we sure?

This becomes like a tension moment, and this becomes one of the topics that's debated the most.

And the reason it's not a thing anymore, it doesn't have to be a thing anymore, is because we are not set apart, we are not made holy by the outward things we do.

The outward things we do matter.

It matters how you live your life.

The words that come out of your mouth, the jokes that you tell, the jokes that you laugh at.

Like all that stuff matters.

Like we're supposed to be different.

But what makes us different is not outward adherence to a list of rituals and rules.

That's not what makes us holy.

What makes us holy is that we have been changed from the inside out, that the Spirit of God has come into us through our faith in Jesus, and now out of love for God, out of gratitude for what He's done for us, we live different lives.

It's it's a heart change.

I mean, Jesus made it really clear.

It's about the heart.

He called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs.

He's like, you guys are so careful to follow every little detail of the law, and you think you're good, but you are whitewashed tombs.

On the outside, it all looks great.

On the inside, it is disgusting.

It's about the heart.

And it was always, by the way, always supposed to be about the heart.

In fact, the prophet Jeremiah, I got a couple quick verses and we'll wrap up.

The prophet Jeremiah, and this is Old Testament.

This is between Jesus and Abraham, right?

In between that time, Jeremiah wrote this, and here we go.

The language is effective.

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your hearts.

Interesting mental picture.

But it's about the heart.

And he would go on in chapter 31 to say, The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah, and this is expanded to all of us now.

This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors, when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt.

They broke that covenant, though I love them as a husband loves his wife, says the Lord.

But this new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people.

The reason that this is not a deciding factor in where we stand with God anymore is because something deeper has taken place.

And it's it's it's in the heart.

And here's where this kind of hits us today as the rubber meets the road, and worship some of you guys can make our way back up.

We're about to take Lord's Supper and and wrap up this great conversation.

You know, thank you guys, by the way.

Wow.

Wow.

I only heard a few snickers here and there, and some genuine laughter when I think it was appropriate.

So I'm really proud of you guys.

I think we all, I think we're all, we should all be proud of ourselves.

We made it through the circumcision talk.

Like, let's go.

Yeah.

Maybe we should all get t-shirts that says, I have a circumcised heart, and wear that around and see, you know, see how that plays.

Maybe people go explain that to me.

I doubt it though.

Uh we could write a worship song, circumcise my heart, oh Lord, and maybe it'll catch on and be a big hit.

But I don't I don't think so.

Um, sorry.

Okay.

Um look, this is this is where it hit me this week.

Like, again, not to just use the language to be goofy, but like, is my heart circumcised?

Like, have I have I actually like if you were Abraham, would you have done that?

Like, guys, if God says, hey, something I need you to do.

If Abraham did that, would would I obey God like that?

If God called me to cut anything away in my life that wasn't right, or that he just wanted to change, if he looked at me and said, hey, I need Justin, I'm gonna need you to do some things different.

I need this to go.

Would I do that?

Like, have I actually surrendered my heart to him so fully that I will obey him and I will do whatever he asks of me, regardless of how painful and strange and whatever it might be.

I mean, as much as I can make fun of Abraham and scoff at his decision with Hagar and be like, what were you thinking?

I mean, at the same time, give the man some credit.

He's obedient to God in this moment.

And we are called in Scripture to have, you know, we'll use lighter language, surrendered hearts to God.

We are called to be living sacrifices.

In fact, it says in the book of Romans that we are to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice that is our true act of worship.

We are to offer ourselves completely to God and say, Lord, here I am, I belong to you, I'm yours.

Cut away anything, anything in my life that is not for me.

Have I done that?

And I think the answer is yes, I have.

I've given my life to Jesus, but I think we need reminders, guys.

I think we I need that.

I need a daily reminder, probably, that look, I'm a follower of God, and that means obedience.

That that means surrender.

It isn't just like, woo-hoo, my sins are forgiven.

That's a huge part of it, by the way.

That is grace, but aren't we supposed to respond to grace?

If James would put it this way in the New Testament, James is very direct.

He says, What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but don't show it with your actions?

Can that kind of faith save anyone?

In other words, he's saying, is that real faith?

Is that saving faith?

Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say goodbye and have a good day.

Stay warm, eat well.

But then you don't give that person any food or clothing.

What good does that do?

So you see, faith by itself isn't enough.

And he's not contradicting the idea that we're saved through faith.

What he's saying is there are certain things that maybe indicate for us whether or not that faith is actually genuine, whether that faith runs deep.

He says, faith is not enough.

Unless it produces good deeds, it's dead and useless.

Now, someone may argue, well, some people have faith, others have good deeds.

I say, How can you show me your faith if you don't show me your good deeds?

I'll show you my faith by my good deeds.

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God, good for you.

Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.

How foolish, can't you see that faith without action, without good deeds is useless?

What I'm trying to say is, guys, I read this story and I go, wow, um, interesting stuff.

But what a challenge to me to say, have I surrendered fully to God?

Am I holding on to anything right now in my life?

Is there anything that is not right?

Or even if it's just not what God wants, even if it's not wrong morally, like, is there anything I'm holding on to that I just say, God, this is not, this is not on the table.

It's not on the table.

And if the answer to that question is yes, I have to let that go.

I have to be like Abraham and recognize that God is God, and when He, I mean, He's blessed us so much, He's given us His Son, He's brought us into a relationship with Him.

That means if He asks for something, I gotta say yes.

And I think all of us have things in life that we that just matter so much to us that we might really struggle to let it go if God were to call us to let it go.

And stories like this remind us that man, when we have a God this good and He's this powerful and mighty, and yet He loves us and He blesses us, and He gives us a relationship with Himself, we belong to Him.

Like we belong to Him, He's we've been purchased by His blood.

And we have to have surrendered hearts, obedient hearts, willing to do whatever God calls us to do, and willing, honestly, willing to have things removed that God wants removed.

And my challenge to you personally would just be to open your heart to God and reflect on that a little bit and just say, Lord, my heart is yours.

And just like David wrote in the Psalms, if there's anything that offends you, if there's anything, Lord, that you look at and you go, I need you to do this, I'll do it.

In fact, with that in mind, let's let's take Lord's Supper.

And if you're new, we do this every single week.

Um, we we've actually moved the tables out in the lobby so that you can see them.

That took us ten years to figure out.

Uh but if you forgot, you don't have to go all the way out to the lobby because we also have them now on the back four columns of the room.

Madison had that idea.

Uh actually, so at the back four columns, if you forgot one, just grab one from there.

There's a smaller number there.

Um and so we take this little meal every every single week, and it always connects.

You know, this is the body of Jesus, this is the blood of Jesus, and we talked a lot about blood today.

But I want to read for you something else in Hebrews.

We read Hebrews earlier, chapter 9, where it talked about there can be no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.

Hebrews 9, 11 through 15 says, Christ has now become the high priest over all good things that have come.

He has entered that greater, more perfect tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world.

With his own blood, not the blood of goats and calves, he entered the most holy place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people's bodies from ceremonial impurity.

Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from the sinful deeds that we've committed so that we can worship the living God.

For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.

That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them.

Just like Abraham had an inheritance promised, so do we.

For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.

And then he would later go on to say, For without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins.

We are still called, just like Abraham was, to be holy, to be set apart, to be different.

Circumcision, that was the sign for Abraham and his descendants that they were supposed to be set apart, holy, and different.

For us, it's not some outward thing.

Even though we need outward experiences, baptism is one of those.

We we are called to have outward experiences that express what's happened in our heart.

But what makes you holy, it's not, you don't have to get a tattoo, you don't have to wear Christian t-shirts, you don't, it's not those things.

Those things are fine.

What makes you holy is your heart.

If it's been offered to God, if it's been surrendered to God and the Spirit of God now lives inside of you, and you know that you've been freed from the penalty of your sins.

You don't live under the fear and burden of that, but not only do you not live under the fear and burden of your sins, because of what Jesus has done, he has freed you from the power of sin.

Now you are free to obey God.

Not out of fear, if you don't obey him, you're gonna be judged, but now you get to obey God out of gratitude, out of love, because of what he's already done for you.

And if you haven't given your life to Jesus, if you never surrendered, maybe I'm using a lot of words to say something that could be said much more simply.

What it basically means is everything you've ever done that's that's been wrong, covered by the blood of Jesus.

This meal, this sacrifice, his body on the cross, his blood, purifies you from all of that if you put your faith in him.

And if you have put your faith in him, offer your hearts on a daily basis as a living sacrifice and say, Lord, if there's anything you need me to do, so that I am set apart from everybody else in this world as a follower of you, call me to do it, and I'll do it.

Make sense?

I hope so.

Otherwise, I just wasted 45 minutes of your time.

Let's take this bread and let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this bread.

Thank you so much for what you've done for us, Lord.

You're so good.

Without this sacrifice, Jesus, we would have no hope.

We could never earn what you've given to us.

We can never earn mercy and grace and forgiveness.

Thank you, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

And now the juice.

Your son had no sin.

And yet it is not our blood that you demand to pay the price for our own sin.

Rather, you gave your blood.

Jesus, you gave your very own blood to pay the price for our mistakes.

Thank you, Jesus.

We're grateful to you, Lord.

We love you, Lord.

And as we drink this and as we thank you for what you've done for us, help us live with surrendered hearts, offering ourselves up to you in total obedience.

And we pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.