Cut Off From the World

If you have a Bible, you can go and grab it and turn it to the book of Genesis. Continuing our series in the book of Genesis, we'll be looking at chapter 17. If you don't have a Bible, you can use a pew Bible that's in front of you. If you don't own a Bible, feel free to take that Bible home with you. We would love for that to be a little gift for you to have a copy of God's word and be able to read it yourself and see what God's word says. We would love for you to keep that Bible as a gift. Again, we'll be in the very first book of your Bible, Genesis chapter 17. That's a big number. And the little numbers are the verse numbers. So, we'll be looking at the whole chapter, Genesis chapter 17. I'll read the whole chapter for us and then we'll pray.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, saying, “I am God Almighty. Live in my presence and be blameless. I will set up my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell facedown and God spoke with him: “As for me, here is my covenant with you: You will become the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you. I will confirm my covenant that is between me and you and your future offspring throughout their generations. It is a permanent covenant to be your God and the God of your offspring after you. And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as a permanent possession, and I will be their God.” God also said to Abraham, “As for you, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations are to keep my covenant. This is my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you, which you are to keep: Every one of your males must be circumcised. You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations, every male among you is to be circumcised at eight days old—every male born in your household or purchased from any foreigner and not your offspring. Whether born in your household or purchased, he must be circumcised. My covenant will be marked in your flesh as a permanent covenant. If any male is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that man will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai, for Sarah will be her name. I will bless her; indeed, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will produce nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Abraham fell facedown. Then he laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a hundred-year-old man? Can Sarah, a ninety-year-old woman, give birth?” So Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael were acceptable to you!” But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a permanent covenant for his future offspring. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will certainly bless him; I will make him fruitful and will multiply him greatly. He will father twelve tribal leaders, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will confirm my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.” When he finished talking with him, God withdrew from Abraham. So Abraham took his son Ishmael and those born in his household or purchased—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that very day, just as God had said to him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised, and his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised. On that very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. And all the men of his household—whether born in his household or purchased from a foreigner—were circumcised with him.

— Genesis 17:1-27 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, as we think about this covenant that you make with Abraham, as we think about our own lives, I pray, Lord, that you would help us to live lives distinct and holy and wholly dedicated to you. I pray that you would help us to even understand that this morning. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Set Apart by a Covenant Sign

When I was a teenager, we would frequently go on mission trips to the Navajo reservation. I actually knew Brian when I was 11, and we would go on these trips together. There was one summer before we went where all of the men on our mission trip team decided to shave their heads. Brian had a little monk-avatar-looking head; you could see pictures of it in the past. Everyone would get around and shave their heads, and it was a way that everyone knew they were members of Miraceland Baptist Church.

And we would all go to this mission field together, except for one guy. My mom didn't let me shave my head. I was so upset because everyone else was very clearly distinguished, and I wasn't part of the club. I was completely excluded. I did not receive the covenant sign.

You think about other signs that set us apart. Rings that exemplify the marriage covenant signify that you share something with your partner that you do not share with other people—with your spouse—that you are one flesh with them. That is a unique, God-given, holy thing. There are all sorts of other signs that we have that signify we are able to do things that others cannot do. Costco executives are able to get into Costco an hour early, right? Certain clothes that you wear signify to other people that you're part of different classes.

Abraham in this chapter in Genesis receives a covenant sign from God that's meant to set him apart from other people. And with that covenant sign also comes the foreshadowing of what God will ultimately do in bringing salvation for all people. This chapter follows pretty similarly with the pattern of the Christian faith as we see God now repeat this covenant promise to Abram a third time. We'll see that he follows the covenant promise, then the covenant sign, then talks about the covenant son, and then Abraham responds with the covenant commitment.

So there are four things that we're going to look at this morning: the covenant promise, the covenant sign, the covenant son, and the covenant commitment. At the very end of the sermon, I'll try to walk through Abraham's story a little bit with some reflections on how this covenant of circumcision applies to us as Christians.

The Covenant Promise

Let's start with point number one, the covenant promise. Read with me again from verse one: "When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him saying, 'I am God Almighty. Live in my presence and be blameless. I'll set up my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you greatly.'"

God appears to Abram again and gives him a promise similar to everything that we've heard for the last couple of weeks: that Abram is to follow God, He will set up His covenant, and then Abram will multiply greatly. This is so normal at this point in Genesis. We've talked about this over and over again, to the point that your eyes can almost gloss over the very next part of the story.

This happens a lot in the Old Testament. Sometimes we can treat the Old Testament like a non-stop highlight reel. Genesis moves pretty fast and covers a lot of history. You go from creation to the fall, to Cain and Abel, to the flood—just exciting part after exciting part. So when you read about Ishmael being born and then get to the covenant of circumcision, it almost seems like these things are happening side-by-side. But while chapter 17 is just a centimeter or two away from chapter 16, within those two centimeters in your Bible is 13 years.

It says that Abram was 99 years old. Earlier in the chapter, it said that he was 86 when he had his son Ishmael. Even after that chaotic mess of sin and sadness that we saw last week, God doesn't reenter the story until 13 years later. Could you wait 13 years? I think as time goes on, what is most remarkable to me about figures like Abram in the story isn't just his acts or his work, but his ability to wait, to endure.

In five chapters, we are spanning 24 years of waiting. Some of us can't even wait 24 hours. But with everything from asking God to help us through a trial to waiting for Jesus to come back, good things come to those who wait. And when God introduces Himself in chapter 17, He introduces Himself with a specific name: El Shaddai, God Almighty. The almighty God who can do all things, who can do anything, makes Abram wait 24 years.

And every second of waiting for Abram took work. It took strength and expended energy to have to sit there, and every second of waiting had a purpose. God knew exactly what He was doing. God was going to demonstrate His power through a 99-year-old man by giving him a child through his 89-year-old wife, Sarai. God would demonstrate His power in Abram's life through his holy living and by displaying God's blessing in his life through holiness and multiplication.

With this work that He gives Abram comes a new name. In verse three: "Then Abram fell face down and God spoke with him: 'As for me, here is my covenant with you. You will become the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram. Your name will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of many nations.'"

The covenant God makes with Abram reaffirms all the promises that God made with Abram before in Genesis 12. He'll be a father of many nations, and they will inherit the land. To mark this promise, He gives Abram a new name. Abram is no longer "the high father" (which is what his name means), but Abraham, "the father of many nations." Abram receives a new name, a new sign of being made new, so that every single time Abraham's name is uttered, it would be another reminder of all that the Lord would do for him and what he is destined to be.

This promise isn't contingent on what Abraham does, but on what God will do. Do you see the way that God speaks to Abram here in verses 3 through 8? All Abram does is receive: "You will become," "your name will be." The only one who is acting in verses 3 through 8 is God. He says, "I will make you," "I will make nations and kings come from you," "I will confirm my covenant," "I will give the land," "I will be their God."

God is making clear to Abraham: this is not about what you get to do for Me; this covenant is about what I will do for you. All the blessings that Abraham will receive are an extension of God's blessings to him. To demarcate that distinction of all God will do for His people, God doesn't just give Abraham a new name, He also gives him a new sign.

The Meaning of Circumcision

This brings us to point number two: the covenant sign. Look at verse nine: "God also said to Abraham, 'As for you, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations are to keep my covenant. This is my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you, which you are to keep: Every one of your males must be circumcised.'"

God calls Abraham to circumcise himself and all of the men under his household as a sign of the covenant. Now, that picture—to circumcise or to cut the foreskin off of a man's private parts—might seem like a really grotesque thing to do, but it has a purpose. This sign is significant because what it does is permanently set Abraham apart from the rest of the world.

Now, to be clear, this act of circumcision isn't necessarily completely foreign to people in this time. You have examples of people in the ancient Near East who did circumcise themselves; that isn't necessarily unusual. It is also not unusual to see covenant agreements with written evidence. We have artifacts from that time that show covenant agreements between two parties. And again, a covenant is a quasi-legal agreement more narrowly defining a pre-existing relationship.

Our Old Testament professor taught us that. It defines a relationship, and you would write it down in stone so that you could have objective evidence that a covenant had been made between two parties. That's not unique either. What's unique about God's command to Abraham isn't the circumcision or the covenant; it's the covenant of circumcision. That's what is unique.

Verse 13 says that the covenant is marked in your flesh as a permanent covenant. The agreement that's being made between God and Abraham isn't like all those other covenants that you may see between two parties. The circumcision that Abraham has is not like a general circumcision for cleanliness. This is more than just an act of being clean, and it's more than just an agreement. God would inscribe His promise of what He would do into the very flesh of the father of nations. The covenant that God makes with Abraham is as permanent as this change to his body. You can't undo circumcision, and that sign follows him. Every single place that he goes, it is attached to his own body.

Now, that almost seems like a contradiction when you read verse 14: if anyone isn't circumcised, they have broken the covenant. So you have a permanent covenant that is then broken if someone doesn't get circumcised. But the reason why someone is breaking the covenant if they don't get circumcised is actually because the covenant is permanent. If someone rejects that covenant sign—if someone says, "I'm not going to get circumcised in response to God's promises"—what it means is that they are rejecting God's promises for them. They are not believing in the Lord's promise for them.

So, in that way, they ought to be cut off from the people because to deliberately reject the covenant sign is to reject the covenant. If you think of Abraham cutting off his foreskin as a picture of him separating himself from the world in order to be wholly committed to God, if you refuse to do that, then you are to be cut off just like that foreskin because you are not committing to be holy like God is. You are choosing to join in the world. There is no middle ground when it comes to following God. You are either with Him or you are against Him, because a covenant sign is meant to be indicative of the covenant status of the person. If you do not receive the covenant sign, that means you are choosing not to participate in it; you are breaking that covenant.

And that is the same reason why you and I require baptism to be a member of this church, because we believe that it is a covenant sign. Now, I'll talk more about circumcision and baptism and how that works a little bit later in the sermon, but for now, what you should know is that baptism, just like circumcision, is that initial covenant sign for the people of God who are following Christ. Paul in Colossians 2 says that we were circumcised in Christ when we were buried with Him in baptism. It's not because we believe that baptism saves your soul. We don't believe that the water does anything to you. We don't believe it is particularly holy, even though we do heat it and it is really nice to step into the tub.

That baptism, though, reflects the inner change, the commitment to follow Christ and to obey Him, to trust in the Lord's promises. To deliberately avoid doing that is sin. To deliberately delay obeying Christ when you know what the right thing to do is, is sinful. If you haven't done that and you profess to follow Jesus, I want to encourage you to pursue that. Feel free to talk to me after service. I would love to talk to you more about what it looks like to obey Christ in baptism—not because it's part of the essence of salvation, but because it's part of the essential result of salvation. Christians get baptized. It is the first public thing you do in obeying Christ.

If we were to zoom out and look at what circumcision means, it actually applies to all of us to be marked distinct in our holiness and obedience to Christ—to distinguish ourselves in such a way that the world is able to know that we are a distinct people, that we've been set apart to follow Him, whether through our church membership or through our holiness and the way that we conduct ourselves.

I was talking earlier in class this morning about how Charles Spurgeon would actually send church staff to people's workplaces if they applied for membership at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. They would ask the applicant's coworkers if they knew that person and how they lived their life in the workplace. This accomplished two things. The first thing it did was you could find out a lot about a person based on what their coworkers say. The second thing was that it made clear to everyone in that workplace that that person didn't just represent themselves; they represented Jesus and they represented the church that they were claiming to join.

Would someone be able to say, by the way that you live your life, that you are someone who lives in God's presence? Would they be able to say that you are someone who's blameless? Would there be anything about you and the way that you live that distinguishes you from the rest of your coworkers, from your family, or from your neighbors? A Christian life is a holy life, distinct and set apart. Abraham, hearing all of these things and all of these promises, isn't focused on the promise at all. All he can think about are the obstacles in his way.

The Promised Son vs. the Status Quo

This brings us to point number three: the covenant son. Look at verse 15: "God said to Abraham, 'As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai, for Sarah will be her name. I'll bless her; indeed, I will give you a son by her.'"

God doesn't just rename Abraham; He renames Sarai. She is now Sarah. Similar to Abraham, going from Abram to Abraham is like an ascension in status and name. He does the same thing for Sarah. He elevates her status by giving her a higher name, Sarah, and by telling him that she will have a son. And Abraham responds by laughing. Imagine God giving you a promise like that and you just respond by laughing in His face at the thought of the absurdity of having a child. How can a ninety-year-old woman be able to bear a kid? He responds by saying that he wishes God would just take Ishmael—Ishmael, the "donkey man" from last week.

Last week, we saw how Abraham bore a kid through illegitimate means, through his slave. Now, just like before, Abraham isn't focused on what the Lord will do as much as he's focused on what the Lord can't do—or at least what he thinks God can't do. I mean, why can't God just take Ishmael? This is the second time in Genesis that you see Abraham prefer an alternative son, whether it's Lot or Ishmael. Abraham prefers the son he has over the son who will come—the one that he can see over the one that he hears about.

Because that is exactly what time does. Time dulls our hopes. It makes us feel that the status quo is all that there is, that you could just lower your expectations and then never be disappointed. Hoping is exhausting, and Abraham has been hoping for 24 years. So he lowers his expectations so that he doesn't have to risk being disappointed. It is hard to give up what you have for something that you can't see. Friends, God's promises are always better than our plans. We can react to whatever we see; we can try to conjure up whatever ideas we have in light of what is. God is the only one who can tell us what will be.

But God doesn't back down on this covenant that He made with Abraham, even when Abraham is willing to give up on it. He reminds Abraham of this promise in verse 19: "But God said, 'No, your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a permanent covenant for his future offspring.'"

God makes clear to Abraham: "I've heard your desires for Ishmael. He's going to have a great life. He's going to become a mighty nation, twelve tribes." It almost sounds like the covenant blessings that were promised. But while Ishmael receives tons of blessings from God, he doesn't receive the covenant promise. The covenant that God makes won't go with Ishmael, and it won't go with his descendants. The way that God will distinguish between Ishmael and Isaac isn't whether or not things turn out well for the two of them, but whether or not God has chosen one over the other.

The blessings are with Ishmael, but not the covenant promise. It is a dangerous thing to try to assess God's promise or blessing over you based on the results that you see. Ishmael and Isaac look like they have very similar lives, with very similar outcomes, but they have very different promises. The covenant promise goes through Isaac, a hopeful name because it means "laughter." The cynical laughter of Abraham (and, as we'll see next time, Sarah) will turn into the joyous laughter of a hope that is finally fulfilled. And God, for the first time in all of these conversations with Abraham, sets a timer for when that promise will finally happen: it will happen in one year. The 25 years of waiting would finally result in God's blessing. When Abraham hears that, that's when he starts to act.

Obedience and the Circumcision of the Heart

This brings us to our last point: the covenant commitment. Look at verse 23: "So Abraham took his son Ishmael and those born in his household or purchased—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that very day, just as God had said to him."

See the word that keeps coming up over and over again. It's almost like a camera is just cutting—boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He's doing it over and over again. The reason why it's doing that is because it wants you to see that this is a really big deal, right? This is the pattern in which God works: God initiates, He calls, and we respond in faith, focused on this action that they do.

Why do you think Moses is saying this to the Israelites? Because he is trying to make clear: you need to also get circumcised. This is something that you do. Look at Abraham do it. Look at his son do it. Look at everyone else do it. I want you to keep looking at this thing until it gets through. You need to get circumcised and obey the command. It's not just something that you do for the sake of doing it; it's something that you do in response to God's promises. You do it in faith. It is a commitment to be cut off from the world and to commit to following God. This promise expands to all the men in his household; all of them receive this sign of the promise.

Except, if you've read this chapter, there is like a giant, gaping problem in this section, which is that Ishmael also gets circumcised. God just spent a bunch of sentences talking about how Ishmael isn't the guy, and yet Ishmael receives the covenant sign. He is circumcised right after God makes clear that the covenant won't go through him. So why give Ishmael the covenant sign when he isn't going to inherit the covenant promise? It is to show that receiving the covenant sign doesn't mean that you have received the covenant promise.

One pastor told the story about conducting spontaneous baptisms. By the way, side note: don't do that. Just don't do that, okay? He talked about having a woman step into the pool to be baptized. When he asked her why she came to be baptized, she said, "I need to get baptized. My mom's sick." That poor woman seemed to have an expectation that baptism would provide some kind of extra spiritual benefit for her family. Thankfully, and I think rightfully, that pastor refused to baptize her. Not because she didn't deserve prayer or love—she does deserve those things—but so as to not confuse her into thinking that baptism would somehow change her family situation.

We can do that in all sorts of ways. We can think about going to church on Sundays as making us a Christian, or taking communion as somehow making us okay with God. But we can do all of the external rituals of the faith and still have a dead heart. Christianity is more than just having godly routines; it's about having a renewed heart. Circumcision is not the point, despite how many times it gets repeated in this section. It's about what circumcision points to. And you don't even have to go to the New Testament to see that. You can stay in the Old Testament and understand that circumcision is not the point. Turn with me in your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 10. It is the fifth book in your Bible. Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 12.

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you except to fear the Lord your God by walking in all his ways, to love him, and to worship the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul? Keep the Lord’s commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good. The heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord had his heart set on your ancestors and loved them. He chose their descendants after them—he chose you out of all the peoples, as it is today. Therefore, circumcise your hearts and don’t be stiff-necked any longer.

— Deuteronomy 10:12-16 (CSB)

What does Moses want these people to do? Don't just circumcise yourself. All the men had already done that. If you read these five books of the Bible, you understand these circumcised guys sin a lot. So don't just circumcise yourself; circumcise your heart. It says here: "Love the Lord with all of your heart and your soul." No one, whether circumcised or uncircumcised, should assume that they're just okay. If you're circumcised, you shouldn't assume you're just okay because of it. It doesn't matter if you're Ishmael or a Pharisee; that does not make you okay in the sight of God.

That is exactly why in Matthew 8:11-12, Jesus says, "I tell you, many will come from east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom"—the inheritors of the promise, the ones that are circumcised—"will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." They are sons of the kingdom, descendants of Isaac, they have been circumcised, and yet they will not receive the blessing of the kingdom because their hearts aren't circumcised. They aren't dedicated to the Lord. They aren't fully dedicated to obeying Him.

Where is your heart this morning? No one can serve two masters. Jesus says you'll either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. We know, even from the passage we read this morning in Romans 4, that Abraham was saved not through the circumcision that he receives, but through his faith before he was circumcised. This is Paul's whole argument in Romans 4: that Christianity isn't about routine; it's about being renewed.

The good news of Christianity is not simply to obey a command like circumcision. It's not even about committing yourself toward holiness. It's to be able to see that the point of our religion, the point of our relationship with God, the point of the gospel, is that we're supposed to love God with our hearts. It is at that point that we know that all of us fail. If it were as simple as just eating some juice and crackers or dunking yourself in some water, this would be a really easy religion. But Christianity is not about that. It's about loving the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

And that is a standard where we have a lot of problems. Our hearts are not circumcised, and our best efforts would be found deficient in making us holy because we defile ourselves again and again. We would stand condemned before a holy God. But the good news is that circumcision is not the covenant promise. It is a covenant sign. It doesn't save you; it points you to the only thing that can save you: a covenant inscribed into Abraham's own flesh. God would provide a place, a people, and power to him, and through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That promise is so significant, so sure, and so great that it was worth renaming him to the father of many nations, because from his own offspring—which is the same word for seed—would come the very means of salvation for all people.

And just to remind him of that promise, it would be placed in the very place from where salvation would come. It's exactly what Paul understood and talked about in the New Testament in Colossians chapter 2. Turn with me in your Bible to Colossians chapter 2. We're going to look at verses 9 through 15.

For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority. You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

— Colossians 2:9-15 (CSB)

We have been circumcised in Christ, circumcised with Him. What does that mean? Well, if you think of the analogy of circumcision—being cut off from the world, removing yourself from the world to live in God's presence and be blameless—Jesus becomes the circumcision that gets cut off for us. Even though He lived a perfect life and we didn't, even though He has every right to claim the throne in the heavenly places and we don't, even though He is the only one who meets the qualifications that God gives to Abraham in Genesis 17, He would be treated like dirty, sin-stained flesh, something to be removed and cut off.

On the cross, Jesus bore the wrath of God on His shoulders. Three days later, He rose victorious over sin and death. The idea of the gospel, this promise, is that because He was cut off, we are able to be raised with Him. No matter your background, your sin, or your past, if you join with Christ, your sin gets cut off when Jesus was cut off. In uniting with Christ, you receive His holiness so that you could rise from the dead as a new man. Jesus was cut off so that you and I don't have to be.

That's precisely why the circumcision that Jesus does with you and me is a circumcision that is not done with hands, because hands can never change the heart. This is a circumcision that happens inside. He cuts off our trespasses. He cuts off our guilt. He cuts off every single penalty that you ever deserved, and He gives you forgiveness. All your trespasses are completely washed clean. The certificate of debt that you owe is completely paid for. Being united with Christ extends this permanent covenant of grace that Abraham had to you and me.

This amazing promise that what Abraham had to anticipate in the future, what he had to trust by giving this promise to his sons (even if they may not be circumcised in heart), you and I don't have to anticipate it—we get to just celebrate it. We get to celebrate what Christ has done. Because Christ put on the body of flesh, because He was cut off for us, we can take off our sin and put on Christ.

When you come to Jesus, that's exactly what happens. He covers you in His righteousness. You are united to Him in such a way that Christ unites with your sin and pays for it, and you unite with His righteousness and live in light of His holiness. And the way that we show that circumcision of heart isn't through physical circumcision. You don't have to do that because the covenant sign now changes.

Circumcision looks forward; baptism looks backward. Circumcision looks forward at what God would do through the son of Abraham who would come; that is why it is so focused on the seed and where offspring comes from. Baptism celebrates what God has already done through Jesus Christ. Baptism directly reflects what happens to us when we have placed our faith in Christ: we were dead in our trespasses and sins, we are buried with Christ, we die with Him to our sins, and we rise victorious over sin and death with the penalty of sin completely paid for by Christ's blood.

That is why, by the way, we only baptize believers. We're not trusting in some kind of future promise for our kids by baptizing them, because that promise has already been fulfilled. The reason why we baptize is because we celebrate what Christ has done in them—that the promise has been extended to that person. And the way that happens isn't through circumcision or through being genetically attached to someone who is a believer. We know that if you just read your Old Testament. The reason why we apply the covenant sign is because someone has turned from their sin and trusted in Christ. It doesn't matter what nation you come from, what background you have, what regrets you may have, or what sin stains your soul—anyone can come to Christ and be baptized.

That's also why we get to celebrate covenant signs like the Lord's Supper—not because the Lord's Supper washes us clean, but because Jesus already has. That could be you this morning. As we celebrate these covenant signs, we can on one level genuinely celebrate what the Lord has done in providing this promise for us. We can also live in light of that covenant promise, just like Abraham did, by obeying these signs and walking in a blameless way that reflects what Christ has done for us. We get to celebrate and give glory to God for doing something that you and I could never do: His blood spilled, His body broken for you and me.

What greater reason to rejoice? What greater gift can we have as we close out this year than to celebrate over and over again as we look at the covenant signs given to us, to remind ourselves of what Jesus has done for us and all that we have to look forward to on the day that He returns.

Let's pray. Lord, we pray now that as we get to celebrate what you've done for us, as we get to celebrate Jesus being cut off for us so we could be united with you, we thank you, Lord, for this gift of salvation we have. I do pray, Lord, that if anyone here doesn't trust you, or is trusting you and hasn't been baptized, I pray, Lord, that they would be able to obey you, that they would be able to see this promise laid out in front of them and step forward in obedience. I pray, Lord, even as we celebrate the Lord's Supper together, that we'd be able to rejoice in what Christ has done. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.