Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Will You Accept God's Covenant? | Torah | Genesis 17

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. How should modern-day Christians respond to God's Old Testament covenants? Do they still apply? In today's episode, Jensen looks at God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17 to share how this covenant can apply to our lives today. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Passages: Genesis 17 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Jensen Holt-McNair. And I'm Patrick Miller. We are exploring the first books of the Bible. Right now, we're in Genesis. Over the years, I've signed up for my fair share of email newsletters.

Some, better than others, but most of them don't bring me closer to God. Can you relate? Well, this year, I think it's time we change that. sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks email newsletter. Once a week, you'll get a blessedly short email with guides on spiritual disciplines, inspiring challenges to grow, interesting cultural backgrounds on today's passage, and even quick studies of Hebrew and Greek words. Each week is going to be a little different, and so we're hoping that you're going to love

the variety. So stop what you're doing, click the link in the show notes, and sign up. Now, let's hop into today's episode. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, I am God Almighty. Walk before me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers. Abram fell face down and God said to him, as for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations.

No longer will you be called Abram. Your name will be Abraham. For I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful. I will make nations of you and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

The whole land of Canaan where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be there, God. Okay, haven't we been here before? At first glance, Genesis 17, it actually feels a lot like deja vu. God made a covenant with Abram back in chapters 12 and 15. By this point in Abrams' life, God has already promised to make him into a great nation, to bless the world through his offspring, and to give him a son. So why say it all again? Well, I think you could easily say that God reiterates his promises, his covenant multiple times throughout Abram's life to remind him that he's made these promises. See, at this point, Abram is 99. So you can imagine as he ages, it might be easy to falter, to disbelieve God's

promise of a son and a nation and offspring as numerous as the stars. We can see the effect. We can see the effects of this later when God specifically promises to give him his son, and he laughs. He scoffs at the idea of a 90-year-old woman having a child. To the passage of time, it's clearly having a toll on Abram's ability to believe God's promises. So, God reiterates his promise to remind Abram and his people that he's faithful. But we also see something new in Chapter 17. First, you may have already noticed that God changes Abram's name to Abraham. A name change at 100 might seem a little weird and unnecessary, but God is actively changing his name from Abram, which means exalted father to Abraham, which means father of a multitude. It doesn't seem like a huge change, but can you hear the

reiteration and magnification of God's promise? As Abraham hears his name day in and day out, he's actively going to be reminded of God's covenant to him, to make him into a father of a multitude of nations. And the second difference is God's addition of a sign to this covenant. Verse 9. Then God said to Abraham, as for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep. Every male among you. you shall be circumcised. You were to undergo circumcision, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come, every male among you who is eight days old must be

circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner, those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is a not been circumcised in the flesh will be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. So before this chapter, this covenant seems to be without explicit conditions. God will be faithful to this covenant whether or not Abram and his descendants are. And here we actually see an explicit call on Abram's part to be blameless to keep the covenant, but also to take part in it through circumcision. God says circumcision will be a sign. It's a permanent mark of belonging, a permanent reminder that God has promised to be their God and that Abraham and his household, his descendants, the nation of Israel, will all belong to this covenant. They're called to be blameless before their God, to believe in his promises and to live obediently in order to bless his creation. And it's not an easy call.

What's being asked of Abraham can honestly probably seem odd to us, even barbaric when we think of his age and the command to circumcise all in his household. But God is clear that those who are not faithful to this call of circumcision are to be cut off from this people and this covenant. He's asking Abraham to trust him with his life, his body, and his future. And Abraham responds in faith. On that very day, Abraham took his son Ishmael, and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household and circumcised them, as God had told him. Abraham circumcises his entire household. He responds obediently in faith. But how are we supposed to respond? It can be easy to read this passage about Abraham and this covenant and circumcision and the birth of the nation of Israel and think, What does this have to do with me?

And I think one thing we can say is just like in Abraham's life, God reiterates his promises to us, and he's faithful to see them completed. But even more than that, we can connect to this because this promise, this covenant was made with Abraham in the nation of Israel, but this covenant is actually all about bringing redemption to all of creation through the line of Abraham. And it finds its ultimate fulfillment in,

Jesus. See, Jesus is the offspring of Abraham that's able to live the perfect, blameless life. He's the one who takes on the failure of the Israelites to uphold their end of the covenant. And he's the one who opens the door for all of creation to be a part of a renewed covenant with God. While Abraham's covenant spoke of the promised land, offspring, and the blessing of all the nations, this new covenant, it promises forgiveness of sin, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a kingdom that's ruled perfectly by a faithful king and perfect unity of God's people. This is the covenant that God is making with his people today. And because of this, we no longer rely on physical circumcision as a sign of the covenant.

Paul tells us in Romans that it is not about the physical outward sign of circumcision, but about circumcision of the heart by the spirit, not the written code or the law. To the Holy Spirit working and changing hearts, taking what once was dead and sin and brokenness and transforming it into new life is only made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we read scripture today, we're reminded again and again that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, he has made a way for us to partner with him in building his kingdom. that one day he will return and redeem all of creation. This is the new covenant we're called to live under,

and just like Abraham was called to circumcision as a sign, a mark of the covenant, we're called to live lives that are marked by a spiritual circumcision of the heart. To the slow and painful process of cutting away sin in transforming our hearts and lives to look more and more like Jesus, is what we're called to be faithful to today. It requires action on our part. Like Abraham, it will mean taking faithful steps to trust God with our lives, even when it's hard and painful.

Maybe even now there are areas where your gut reaction is to want to protect your sin, instead of wanting to do the hard work of allowing the Holy Spirit to convict you of it. I know that there have been many times, even now, when I find myself falling into the same sin patterns of anger and resentment in my heart. It feels easier to just keep that to myself, to not confess the anger I'm feeling to my husband or my friends. Sometimes it even feels good to be angry. I fall into self-righteousness and ruminating on that anger makes me feel justified and in control. I want to protect that sin because to be humble, to admit wrong, to learn how to find peace and have patience, that's hard.

It's easier to just let my mind and heart get trapped in the pattern of anger. But when I do that, I'm nurturing my sin instead of listening to what Paul calls me to. Immediate, swift, decisive action against my sin. And it's not for the fun of it or just because God wants me to, but because in doing so, we find freedom as we enter into this new covenant with Christ. Where do you catch yourself protecting your sin? Where do you find it difficult to let others and the Holy Spirit convict you and begin to change you? Maybe every time your pastor talks about a certain sin or you read scripture about that sin, you zone out or you turn the page because

you just aren't ready to hear it. I'd challenge all of us. to lean into those places instead of running away and hiding them. See, our hearts are on the line and we're being called into a new covenant, one that has made a way for us to be ultimately free of sin in a new creation. We just have to want that. We have to be willing to open up our lives to the work of the spirit and faithfully allow God's promises and his truth to cut away at those hardened places of our heart. As members, of the new covenant in Christ, let's learn from Abraham. Let's remind ourselves of the promises of God. Write them down. Read them again and again. Let's stop protecting our sin and allow the Holy Spirit

to radically transform our hearts as it calls us to obedience in Christ today. Thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week that challenges you to grow, gives you interesting backgrounds on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Click the link in our show notes to sign up and deepen your journey with Jesus.