Don't Laugh at God's Promises

From the Beginning  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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It is so hard to believe that God is going to do something amazing with your life that we literally laugh at the thought or even the promise that God can do something amazing with our lives.

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Introduction
Have you guys ever seen the movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness.” Staring Will Smith.
It’s an underdog story of a man that has nothing and is determined to provide a good life for his son.
I love underdog stories. I am constantly rooting for the underdog.
I might even be watching a football game and my team start stopping the other team, I’m liable to flip and start rooting for the other team.
I have been asked more than once. Who’s side are you on?
It’s not that I’m not loyal. I just love the underdog story.
I really think that is why I love the ministry. It’s full of underdog stories.
God has a way of taking the most unlikely people and doing the most extraordinarily things with them.
When we talk about God having great plans for you, Do you really believe it?
Great plans are hard to believe for the underdog.
Maybe you weren’t born with privileged or promise.
Maybe you didn’t grow up with opportunities at your finger tips.
That just makes you an underdog and I have come to understand that God is looking for the underdog.
So when we talk about God having great plans for you, Do you really believe it?
Abram and Saria were underdogs. It didn’t seem like they had what it takes.
But yet God chose them to do extraordinary things.
Turn with me to and let’s pick up our story.

The Circumcision of Abraham

The Separation of Abram

Genesis 17:1–8 ESV
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis
When God appears the natural response is the fall on your face.
When God appears the natural response is the fall on your face.
God’s vision is expanded through a new name
Abram means “exalted father”
Abraham means “father of many nations”
God’s covenant finalized
Genesis 17:7–8 ESV
7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis
God commits himself to Abraham and his offspring.
God give the land as a everlasting possession.

The Sanctification of Abraham

Genesis 17:9–14 ESV
9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Circumcising the foreskin was not a common practice.
Circumcision was a token of the covenant, not the covenant
There was no undoing the covenant that God was making with his people.

The Silliness of Abraham

Genesis 17:15–17 ESV
15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
Genesis 17:15
What we pray to God and what we say to ourselves is two different things.
Genesis 17:18–19 ESV
18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” 19 God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
Genesis 17:18
What we pray to God and what we say to ourselves is two different things.
What you produce in the flesh will never take the place of what God produces in the Spirit.
What you produce in the flesh will never take the place of what God produces in the Spirit.

The Circumcision of the Cross

Colossians 2:11–12 ESV
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Christ has cut off our flesh with it’s deeds raised us in the Spirit.
What we receive and what we believe are two different things.
Romans 6:11 ESV
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 2:13–14 ESV
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Col
Jesus has cancelled the record of your debt.
You are free from sin and death.
If you don’t receive this circumcision in the Spirit than you have no covenant with God.
If you have no covenant with God you stand condemned in your sin.
You will be banished from his presence.
Please bow your heads for prayer.

The Circumcision of the Cross

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