Sign of Faith
Texts: Genesis 17:1-16, 23; Colossians 2:11-13
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah
January 26, 2025
We are in a series of sermons on the life of Abram. Abram’s life is a life of faith. Abram’s life helps us see something of what it means to live by faith. God doesn’t give us a set of principles. God doesn’t publish an essay on what faith is. No, God gives us a man who has to live by faith. And God shows us what this man encounters and says “this is how people who belong to me live.” Abram is kind of the prototype of all who live by faith.
Eugene Peterson said that faith is not an explanation. “It can only happen by participation, by setting out and continuing on a journey, a way…”
We learn who God is and how life with him works by journeying with him by faith. With all its ups and downs, its affirming times and confusing times.
Abram is now 99 years old. The Lord first called him when he was 75. So, 24 years have passed. Still no child, no nation, no nothing.
That is a long time to wait. Abram is on God’s time. He is having to wait. He is having to wait in faith.
The life of faith is often a life of waiting. We pray for something and we wait for God to answer in his time and his way. We wonder if anything is happening. Many times it looks as though God has forgotten.
Part of journeying in faith is willing to be on God’s time. It can’t be forced, rushed, or hurried. Sometimes it seems painstakingly slow. I don’t like it anymore than you do but that is what it means to live with God.
God appears to Abram yet again and restates the covenant he is making with Abram. Maybe because the promise is so slow in coming and God understands Abram needs some help.
There are two important words that come up many times in today’s reading: covenant and circumcision.
Covenants are important in the Bible. A covenant is a relationship between two partners who make binding promises to each other and work together for a common purpose. Covenants define the obligations and commitments in the relationship.
But a covenant is different than just a contract because the commitments in a covenant are relational and personal. A marriage is a covenant because a husband and wife choose to enter into a formal relationship, binding themselves to one another with faithfulness and devotion. Think covenant: parent and child. Contract: doctor and child. Two different ways of relating and two different sets of obligations.
When God makes a covenant with humans, since he is sovereign, he states the obligations for both sides. For example when he says, “I will be their God, they shall be my people” that is a covenant, a relationship, and there are certain obligations for this to be real.
God made a covenant with Abram when he said that he would bless him and make of him a great nation. Abram’s part was to go and let God lead him. But, again, it doesn’t seem to be happening. So God comes to Abram again. He restates this covenant.
There are several things to note about this latest encounter of God with Abram:
• God introduces himself as God Almighty. In Hebrew the name is El Shaddai, which in essence means “the Mighty God”. This is the first time God has been called by this name. In this way, God shows himself to Abram in a more intimate fashion. As Abram journeys in faith God becomes more clear, and reveals himself in more intimate ways to Abram.
• El Shaddai tells Abram to walk before him, and to do so blamelessly. This doesn’t mean be perfect. It means to walk in devotion before God. There is a certain type of life that God asks of Abram. He asks for a life of obedience and loyalty to himself.
• El Shaddai changes Abram’s name to Abraham. Mike Riley wanted to know when the Lord changes Abram’s name to Abraham. We have arrived. Abram means “exalted father”, but Abraham means “father of many nations.” God tells Abram that is what he will be. And while Abraham is considered the father of Israel, note the promise was that he would be father of many nations. This promise was not bound by political or ethnic limitations. God also later changes Sarai’s name to Sarah, repeating the promise that Abraham will, indeed, have a son through her. God sometimes changes people’s name in the Bible.
• This covenant with Abram is a royal covenant. Not only will nations come from Abraham but kings will come from him.
• This covenant is an everlasting covenant. It is eternal and will have no end. It will be between God and Abraham, and also Abraham’s descendants for generations to come. Paul writes in the New Testament that all who believe and have faith in God are descendants of Abraham.
• This covenant is relational. El Shaddai will be God to Abraham, and he will be God to all who are his descendants. “I will be your God.” He belongs to us and we to him. In this, there will be a unique relationship to God.
• This covenant will include land, specifically the land of Canaan.
Covenants are often accompanied by oaths, signs or ceremonies. This brings us to the second important word in this passage: circumcision.
God gives a sign of this covenant to Abraham, the sign of circumcision. Abraham is told that this will be the mark that someone belongs to God. Circumcision did not originate here or with the Jews. Other cultures practiced circumcision. But Abraham is given this sign for purposes of faith.
With circumcision, God tells Abraham that there is something to do to belong to him. Faith in God doesn’t take place all up in the mind. It is lived. Faith acts upon the convictions of relationship with God. Sometimes that involves certain rites of our faith. Circumcision is what God Almighty told Abraham to do.
It is a cutting away of the flesh. This sign is physical, intimate and personal.
This was and continues to be an important act in Judaism. To the Jews, a man who was not circumcised was not a Jew. You could have full-blooded Jewish parents, but you had to be circumcised. Jewish rabbinical teaching was that unless the sign of Abraham was in a man’s flesh, he was not to eat the Passover. The Passover meal is the annual celebration of God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. God commanded the people to eat a meal and it has been kept ever since.
If you were a Jew, you automatically received the blessings of God, and there was no way you would be sent to eternal punishment as long as you were circumcised. Some rabbis actually taught that if a Jew was so bad that he had to be condemned by God, there was an angel whose job was to uncircumcise him before he entered into punishment.
Jews believed circumcision was an automatic with God. But while God gave a physical sign to mark the covenant, God intended circumcision to be more than merely physical.
Circumcision was to be a sign of committed faith of the heart. The problem arose when people confused actual faith with the sign of faith. Some believed that if you were circumcised you were automatically OK with God. It led to a kind of spiritual complacency.
Moses would later tell Israel that their rebellious ways showed their hearts did not really belong to the Lord, and he said,
“Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.”
Moses’ words show that just doing a religious ritual wasn’t enough. The heart needs to be involved. True covenant with God is a matter of the heart.
Twice in Jeremiah the Lord speaks of Israel’s hearts needing to be circumcised. The people had gone through the physical act, but it didn’t affect them spiritually. It didn’t touch their lives. In Ezekiel the Lord says those uncircumcised in heart are not to enter his sanctuary.
It was such a big deal that when the first Christians were hashing out what it meant to follow Jesus a big debate was whether or not a man had to still be circumcised. Was it still the thing to do? You will find references to this in some of Paul’s letters in the New Testament.
This is why Paul, a devout Jew and Pharisee, writes in Romans that circumcision is so much more than a mere physical act. He says,
“A person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart – it is spiritual and not literal.” It is intended to be a sign of faith, and therefore a matter of the heart.
The sign didn’t create faith. It merely signified it. Remember in Genesis 15 when it says Abraham believed and God considered him right with him. That was fourteen years before God gave the sign of circumcision. Abraham had already answered God’s call and entered in a relationship with him. Circumcision was only a sign of a faith in God that Abraham already had, and it came long after the faith was born and matured.
Again, Paul, who was as devout a Jew as they came, writes in Romans that, “Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.” He goes on to show that really, no one keeps the law, which is why we need Jesus – the Jewish Messiah – who came to fulfill the law for us. It is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that makes us right with God.
You might be wondering why all this talk about circumcision. This isn’t part of our faith. No, circumcision isn’t our issue. But we still have a sign of faith. Baptism is now the sign of our belonging to God and our entrance into this covenant. It is the sign of the new covenant.
We read this from Colossians this morning:
“In Christ you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins….”
Paul writes that baptism is to the follower of Jesus as circumcision was to people of the old covenant. Baptism is one of the ways we signify our entering into the new covenant God makes with us through Christ. It is the sign of our faith. It is the sign of our commitment to Christ. It is the “new circumcision” if you would. And for all people.
Why does our relationship with God need a sign? Apparently, God is into visible things. Perhaps it is because we need reminders. Jesus gave us baptism, even going through this sign himself. God gave us bread and wine. These things are signs of the relationship we have with God.
We do this with marriage. We have rings to remind us of marriage covenants. The ring doesn’t make the marriage. Marriages only happen through love, self-giving, forgiveness and sharing. But a ring is a sign of the promises of that covenant.
One of the purposes of circumcision was to say who was in and who was not with God. It shows, as do signs of faith, who belonged to God and who did not. We might not like this thought but the truth is God is exclusive.
Everyone is created by God. Everyone is loved by God. But everyone is not just automatically accepted into a right relationship. Anyone can be accepted but it is not on our terms. It is on God’s terms. He determines who belongs to him and who does not. Fortunately, his terms are massively generous and lavishly gracious. We welcomes us when we come by faith. Faith not in our actions but faith in what Jesus has done for us. And that is a matter of the heart.
Do you know that for most of church history it was only those who have been baptized who are allowed to come to the table of The Lord’s Supper? In the first years of the church there was a point in the worship when those who had yet to commit themselves with the sign of faith of baptism were excused, and then Communion was done.
We don’t have any baptism or Lord’s Supper police here. But if we claim to be a Christian baptism is the natural step to becoming part of Jesus.
Before he left this world Jesus said, ”Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” Mark people with the sign of faith in me. Mark those who belong to me, who will love me as I love them, who will walk in my ways.
And just as for circumcision, baptism is really a matter of the heart. Our hearts need to belong to God. They are made to belong to God. To worship him. Follow him. Live for him. Seek him. Want to do his will. Because while faith shows in many outward things, it is first and foremost inward.
God wants a faith of the heart. The prophets preached that if you were circumcised and a Jew then live like one. Paul said that this covenant with God takes place in our hearts.
One of the fundamental parts of living as a Christian is living consistent with our faith. It’s one thing to claim the name Christian and another thing to actually have it as a reality in our life.
God could see Abraham’s heart. God sees your heart and my heart. That’s where our true relationship with him lies. That’s where covenants take place.
Prayer: Father God, give us faith, strengthen our faith, keep our faith. As we walk by faith in this life remind us of the relationship you want with us, that you call us to, and that we are made for. And send your Spirit to guide our steps. Amen.